Goffredo Fofi (15 April 1937 – 11 July 2025) was an Italian essayist, activist, journalist and film, literary and theatre critic.

Life and career

Fofi was born on 15 April 1937 in

Gubbio Gubbio () is an Italian town and ''comune'' in the far northeastern part of the Italian province of Perugia (Umbria). It is located on the lowest slope of Mt. Ingino, a small mountain of the Apennine Mountains, Apennines. History Prehistory The ol ...

. In 1955 he relocated to Palermo, being drawn to the city by the work of

Danilo Dolci Danilo Dolci (28 June 1924 – 30 December 1997) was an Italian social activist, sociologist, popular educator and poet. He is best known for his opposition to poverty, social exclusion and the Mafia in Sicily, and is considered to be one of the ...

. In the first half of the 1960s he moved to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and worked in the film magazine '' Positif''. Back in Italy, he founded the '' Quaderni piacentini'' together with Piergiorgio Bellocchio and Grazia Cherchi and wrote his journalistic investigation ''L'immigrazione meridionale a Torino'', rejected by the Turin publisher Einaudi for considerations on the policy of the company

Fiat Fiat Automobiles S.p.A., commonly known as simply Fiat ( , ; ), is an Italian automobile manufacturer. It became a part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in 2014 and, in 2021, became a subsidiary of Stellantis through its Italian division, Stellant ...

towards immigration, it was instead published by Feltrinelli. In 1967 he founded ''Ombre rosse'' in

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

, a film magazine with strongly political content and very close to the student and workers' movements. Fofi purchased the rights to the novel ''

Emmanuelle Emmanuelle is the lead character in a series of French erotic films based on the protagonist in the novel of the same name, by Emmanuelle Arsan, written in 1959 and published in 1967. Emmanuelle originated as the pen name ''Emmanuelle Arsan' ...

'' for the publishing house and edited the Italian translation: the first edition was seized by the judiciary for obscenity, but the novel still became a bestseller thanks to the subsequent film adaptation of the same name. In 1997 he founded the literary magazine ''Lo Straniero'', which finished publication at the end of 2016. Fofi died in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

on 11 July 2025, at the age of 88.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fofi, Goffredo 1937 births 2025 deaths People from Gubbio 20th-century Italian writers 21st-century Italian writers Italian communists Italian film critics 20th-century Italian male writers 21st-century Italian male writers