Goffredo Fofi has died: farewell to the critic and essayist, magazine founder, and unique cultural animator in Italy.

Goffredo Fofi was known as a film and literary critic, as well as a writer himself. An essayist, but also an educator, and a cultural promoter of magazines that educated novelists and intellectuals. One of the most versatile, prolific, and unclassifiable figures in Italian culture has died at 88. He never renounced his civic commitment, his pursuit of new projects that challenged a culture that presents itself solely as entertainment, and the individualism fueled by the consumerist society of capitalism.

He was born in Gubbio , Umbria , in 1937. The son of a socialist craftsman, he immediately developed a spontaneous passion for books and films despite his family's humble background. He lived mainly in Rome and Naples but spent long periods in all Italian cities, each time an opportunity to delve deeper into cultural, editorial, social, and anthropological characteristics. In Palermo, for example, he worked as a social worker with the philosopher and anti-mafia activist Danilo Dolci , the "Italian Gandhi," during the period of the reverse strikes.

In Naples, he had led the Mensa dei bambini proletari (Soup Kitchen for Proletarian Children). In Turin, he had observed the internal movement from South to North that led to the publication of his first book, L'immigrazione meridionale a Torino (Southern Immigration in Turin ). He was close to the student movements and the extra-parliamentary left in the 1960s and 1970s. Also distant from the Italian Communist Party, he was captured in the early months of 1968 and ended up deeply disillusioned with the movement.

Fofi animated magazines such as Quaderni piacentini , La Terra vista dalla Luna , Ombre Rosse , Linea d'Ombra and Gli Asini . This demonstrates his predilection for group work, discussion, and teamwork. He nurtured and gave birth to editorial and literary realities starting in the 1960s. Writers such as Alessandro Leogrande, Nicola Lagioia, and Roberto Saviano collaborated on his magazines . Fofi collaborated with several newspapers, and in recent years he wrote regularly for the weekly Internazionale . His work on Totò , Alberto Sordi, and Marlon Brando has gone down in critical history. Another memorable contribution was that of Nino D'Angelo, with the 1993 album Tiempo , which contains Ciucculatina d'a ferrovia .

"Through his work as a cultural promoter and organizer," said Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli , "Goffredo Fofi has had a profound impact on contemporary Italian debate like few others, raising deeply compelling questions through an approach that fosters new meaning. His genuine engagement with the themes of Southern Italy , his engagement with the thought of Gaetano Salvemini and Manlio Rossi-Doria, and his ability to reevaluate and reinterpret popular expressions as high culture, have opened up new intellectual avenues. Remembering his work, I wish to express my condolences to his family, along with my own and the Ministry of Culture's deepest sympathy."

OF

Antonio Lamorte