Franco Fortini (1917–1994) was a poet, essayist, literary critic, Marxist intellectual and translator (of Brecht, Goethe and Kafka, among others). His incisive polemical interventions shaped Italian letters in the postwar period. Though selections of his poetry have appeared in English, his unique contributions to the essay-form, to the study of German literature and Italian poetry, and to the direction of Italian intellectual life remain unknown in English. A translation of a major collection of his essays is forthcoming from Seagull.