The French and European heritage of Italian fiction in the 1960s: a missed opportunity

This article examines the importance of foreign fiction in Italian literature in order to explain why novelists associated with the Neoavanguardia focused on the work of their European, particularly French, contemporaries. The first part highlights one of the literary "events" of the 1960s: the arrival of the nouveau roman in Italy. The second part discusses the case of the writer Alberto Arbasino and his essay Certi romanzi, published in 1964. Arbasino's critical approach to diverse literary models is understood in light of his generation's historical situation and serves as a basis for exploring its relation to Europe's fictional heritage.