L’Urlo di Fernanda Pivano: The History of the Publication of Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ in Italy

This article investigates the controversial history of Fernanda Pivano’s Italian translation of ‘Howl’, Allen Ginsberg’s manifesto of the Beat Generation. It examines the translation in the context of the existing publishing correspondence surrounding the poem in order to reveal the complex power negotiations that involved Pivano, Ginsberg, and Mondadori, particularly regarding problems of censorship. Drawing on previously unexplored archive materials, this essay highlights how the close collaboration between author and translator influenced the mechanisms that led to the publication of the poem in Italy, and how Pivano’s hermeneutic work contributed to an unpublished collaborative commentary on Ginsberg’s poem, which has proved useful to translators working in other languages.