LA PEAU

by Malaparte, Curzio [Kurt Erich Suckert]

Price: $3,250.00

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Description

Les Editions Denoel, Paris: 1949. PRESENTATION COPY. First French edition, translated from the original Italian by René Novella, paperback, 18.5cm, 505 pages, 8vo, this copy inscribed, signed, and dated by the author (pseudonym for Kurt Erich Suckert) on the half-title: "al mio caro Giuseppe Prezzolini...Curzio Malaparte Parigi 5 Ottobre 1949." Yellow, black, and green paper cover, spine sunned, page edges browning, a fragile but very good copy. LA PELLE/LA PEAU is a surrealistic tale of the degradation of moral and social values in Naples, following liberation by the Allies, a place where everything was for sale. (The Vatican put LA PEAU on the Index of Prohibited Books.) The title is taken from the author's controversial declaration that "...once flags have lost their meaning, people are only willing to fight for the flag that is their own skin." The postwar presentation to legendary publisher, editor, and journalist, Giuseppe Prezzolini, is extraordinary as Prezzolini spent the war years in New York, and Malaparte spent them in exile and later under house arrest.