Beppe Fenoglio was born in Alba, on February 1, 1922. Since he was a boy, he showed a certain predilection for writing. He lived and studied in Alba, which, in those years, started to become an important economic centre for the Langhe area. He enrolled at “Govone”, a high school of Alba specializing in classical studies, where the teacher Maria Lucia Marchiaro led him to study English and the Anglo-Saxon literature. Fenoglio used to spend his summer holidays with his relatives in San Benedetto Belbo and in Murazzano, showing particular affection for the Langhe hills, the land of his father, a butcher.

At the high school, Fenoglio was lucky enough to be a student of two distinguished teachers who became an important reference point in his studies and for his life: Pietro Chiodi, professor of philosophy, and Leonardo Cocito, professor of Italian. Both anti-fascists, they were actively involved in the partisan war and were able to convey to the young Fenoglio important human and philosophical values. These values can be found between the lines of his writings, based on respect and solidarity. Despite his coherent laicism, Beppe Fenoglio also kept a deep friendship, which lasted a lifetime, with the theologian and philosopher Father Natale Bussi.

With September 8, date of the Badoglio Proclamation, and the Italian army disbandment, Fenoglio chose, as Chiodi and Cocito, to move towards the hills of Alta Langa, to join one of the partisan groups that formed in that period. There he joined first a Garibaldian group and then a Badoglian brigade, thus actively participating in the Resistance. On October 10, 1944, he was with the forces that liberated Alba, which was occupied until November 2. This experience ended into one of his most famous tales: “I ventitrè giorni della città di Alba”.

Fenoglio spent the following difficult and long winter in a terrible isolation, at Cascina della Langa. In his last partisan period, March-May 1945, he was a liaison officer at the British mission which operated in Monferrato, in the Vercelli area and in Lomellina. After the Liberation, he returned to civilian life, but the partisan experience marked his life and inspired many of his novels and short stories.

Since 1947, he worked at the wine producing company Marengo of Alba as a business international representative, a role that he obtained because of its great knowledge of the English language. In the meantime, Fenoglio devoted himself to writing short stories and novels, his true aspiration, so to achieve his dream of becoming a writer. In 1949 he published his first short story “Il trucco”, with the pseudonim of Giovanni Federico Biamonti, on Pesci rossi, a magazine published by Bompiani. In 1952, Einaudi published 12 short stories (six on partisans and six on Langa), entitled “I ventitrè giorni della città di Alba”. In the Gettoni series of Einaudi, “La malora” was published; it was a story the tragic history of the farmers’ society of the early 1900s, set in the Langhe region. In 1959 the first novel, “Primavera di bellezza” was published.

That of Fenoglio is a style for some reasons epic, innovative, rich in neologisms, and words coming from the English language, dry and full of a stingy irony, that in a unique way describes the Langhe region, its territory and its people.

Fenoglio obtained the first recognitions from the critics only since 1960, when he won the “Prato” prize with “Primavera di bellezza” and in June 1962 when he received the “Alpi Apuane” prize, in Versilia, for the short story entitled “Ma il mio amore è Paco”, published on the magazine Paragone.

Critically ill, Fenoglio was hospitalized at the Molinette hospital in Torino and there he died in the night between 17 and 18 February 1963. At the end of April 1963, Garzanti published “Un giorno di fuoco”, which included six short stories already selected by the Author, six discovered by Lorenzo Mondo and the novel “Una questione privata”. His fame, as a writer, was mainly posthumous.


In Alba, in piazza Rossetti 2, it is possible to see a part of his house where he wrote the greatest part of his novels. The building, known as “Casa Mulassano”, is now seat of and important centre for the Study of Literature, History, Art and Culture, the “Beppe Fenoglio” o.n.l.u.s.
 Here the tourist can visit a part of the original apartment of the Fenoglio family and the new Spazio Gallizio, a space dedicated to the great contemporary artist Beppe Fenoglio.
 Alba can be a great starting point to discover the city which gave birth to the writer, following a path in the city centre that touches the key places of the life and works of the writer.

From Alba one can also move to other Langhe places and find bits of memory linked to Fenoglio and to events where he was protagonist. One can find tracks dedicated to Fenoglio in San Benedetto Belbo, Murazzano and Mango.