While during the closing decades of the twentieth century the Italian novel was relatively successful, not so long ago, in the 1980s, critics were lamenting the allegedly bleak future of the genre. At the center of this polemical argument about new “young writers” was the controversial statement by Edoardo Sanguineti (1930- ) that the style and content of these new writers constituted a useless elegance. Some of the writers under attack were Antonio Tabucchi, Pier Vittorio Tondelli (1955-91), Daniele Del Giudice (1949- ), Andrea De Carlo (1952- ), Aldo Busi (1948- ), and Roberto Pazzi. Paradoxically, to outside observers of the Italian scene in France and Germany, the Italian novel at that moment and in the following years seemed so healthy that foreigners were envious of its successes at home and abroad, and translation of the works of not just Umberto Eco but also of Tabucchi, Alessandro Baricco (1958- ), Susanna Tamaro, Paola Capriolo (1962- ), and many others began to attract readers from around the world.

It is a puzzling characteristic of the Italian literary scene that contemporary fiction is criticized for its lack of social or political awareness. For example, some academic critics have attacked Umberto Eco’s best-selling fiction and those who imitate postmodern pastiche on these grounds.