Miguel Delibes and Italy: nearness and distance

The essay analyzes Miguel Delibes’ (1920-2010) relationship with Italy on a double level: the first part considers how Delibes knew and appreciated the country and what cultural and literary aspects he liked most, during the trips and the stays which he carried out from 1956 to 1985 for professional reasons. The second part examines the reception of Delibes’ work by Italian intellectuals (above all, scholars), by reviewing the essays and the translations published from the end of the 1950s to nowadays. The main traces that the contact with Italy left in Delibes’ production are eight articles describing several Italian cities, collected in his travel book Europa, parada y fonda (1963); an interesting series of reviews (1948-1957) where the writer expresses his passion for neorealist cinema; a brief and late text on Alberto Moravia (1990) and the mention of Cesare Pavese in an article of 2004. The result, fairly disappointing, is due to the fact that a man like Delibes, so thoughtful and introverted, kept himself apart from the places where Italian and Spanish cultures came into contact in that period: i.e. book fairs, artists’ circles and literary prizes. Delibes remained in Spain during Franco’s dictatorship, even though he had to face many problems with censorship because of his subtle opposition against the regime: therefore, maybe ideological reasons caused a critical desert towards his work in Italy, at least until the Sixties. In fact, the Italian studies about Delibes and the translations of some of his novels and tales have been conducted mainly by scholars (starting from Giuseppe Bellini), and have developed over the last forty years, as the final pages of this essay demonstrate, while hoping that a contemporary classic like Delibes will raise more critical attention in the next future.