Lettre autographe signée à Guy Tosi

Guy Tosi, professor of Italian and comparative literature at the Sorbonne, was initially known in France as the leading specialist on Gabriele d’Annunzio, the subject of his doctoral thesis. In 1943 he joined Éditions Denoël as a reader, becoming its literary director after the war. In that capacity he was, among others, the editor of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Blaise Cendrars, Henry Miller and, of course, Curzio Malaparte, whose manuscript of Kaputt he accepted for publication in September 1946.

The novel was an immediate and resounding success. Blaise Cendrars, who at the same time became close to Tosi, recognized himself in it, congratulating Tosi on having published the novel, which he had “liked very much (…). It is a great book, rather disgusting, just as I like them, a true reflection of the times” (Cendrars, letter to Guy Tosi, 27 September 1946).

Cendrars even dedicated a story from Bourlinguer, “Naples”, to the Italian writer: “To the disgusting and brilliant Curzio Malaparte, author of Kaputt, in memory of the Legion, in homage to the young Garibaldian in a red shirt from the forest of Argonne, to the infantryman of the Montagne de Reims, and my friendly hand to the deportee of the Lipari Islands. Blaise Cendrars (Neapolitan by occasion).” The two men met for the first time in 1948, during a stay by Malaparte in Paris, through Tosi, at the launch party for Bourlinguer.