Nadya Williams talks with Geoffrey Kurtz about Ignazio Silone’s Bread and Wine, exploring its political, spiritual, and literary significance. They discuss what makes a classic, Silone’s shift from communism to a more open-ended moral vision, the novel’s blend of politics and clandestine faith, and the transformation of its protagonist, Pietro Spina, through solitude and friendship.

Chapters
00:02 – Silone’s author’s note and the idea of rewriting one’s “soul book”
02:29 – Defining a classic: resonance across time and place
04:24 – Silone’s life, politics, and exile
08:54 – From political collapse to becoming a novelist
11:00 – The 1936 and 1955 editions: from didactic to subtle
13:13 – Setting and premise of Bread and Wine
14:35 – Disguise, solitude, and unexpected friendships
17:45 – Growth in character and writing craft
18:10 – How much is Spina autobiographical?
21:51 – Political and religious dimensions rooted in the same moral impulse
24:53 – Don Benedetto as a bridge between action and contemplation
29:33 – God’s clandestine presence in the novel
31:08 – Solitude as the seed of transformation
35:48 – Loneliness, community, and the longing for safe relationships
36:30 – Reception in Italy, the U.S., and among leftists and Catholics
43:50 – Politics bounded by love and human dignity
47:26 – Kurtz’s intellectual journey and democratic socialism
50:55 – On “democratic socialist” vs. “social democrat”
51:38 – Current reading: Wendell Berry and parallels to Silone
54:21 – A classic Kurtz wishes he’d written

Links

Geoffrey Kurtz, "How to Be a Liberal-Socialist-Conservative" Geoffrey Kurtz, Jean Jaurès: The Inner Life of Social Democracy