On Friendship and Freedom : The Correspondence of Ignazio Silone and Marcel Fleischmann

__On Friendship and Freedom__ contains the first published collection of correspondence between Silone and his longtime friend the philanthropist and art collector Marcel Fleischmann.

Ignazio Silone, the anti-fascist, Italian author and political activist, continues to intrigue readers and stimulate their minds nearly four decades after his death. On Friendship and Freedom contains the first published collection of correspondence between Silone and his longtime friend the philanthropist and art collector Marcel Fleischmann.

Maria Nicolai Paynter, a recognized authority on Silone and his work, deftly guides the reader through the years dominated by Fascism and Nazism as well as the decades leading up to Silone’s death in 1978. Of particular interest for its human value, the correspondence gathered in this volume is most inspiring in that it reveals how two men of different cultural and religious backgrounds join together and share true friendship against all odds.

Contents 7 Preface 9 Chronology 13 Abbreviations 25 Introduction 29 A Friendship Is Born 30 The Historical Milieu 31 Some Perceptions of Silone 33 On Friendship and Freedom 36 The Silone Archives 39 Contextualizing the Silone-Fleischmann Correspondence 40 Four Remarkable People 46 Ignazio and Darina Silone 46 Marcel Fleischmann and Elsa Schiess 70 The Correspondence 92 Afterword 231 Notes 237 Selected Bibliography 261 Acknowledgments 273 Index 277 "Ignazio Silone was an important and mid 20th century Italian writer. A communist, he spent much of his time in Switzerland during World War II and was supported by Marcel Fleischmann. A wealthy businessman and supporter of culture. This ms is a translation of their correspondence, translated from French (Silone's letters) and German (Fleischmann's letters)"-- Provided by publisher