One does not kill oneself for love of a woman, but because love - any love - reveals us in our nakedness, our misery, our vulnerability, our nothingness.

for the Italians his death has come to have a weight like that of Hart Crane for us a meaning that penetrates back into his own work and functions as a symbol in the literature of an age. As a young man of letters Pavese had a particular interest in English-language literature graduating from the University of Turin with a thesis on the poetry of Walt Whitman. Bitter struggles took place between Germans and partisans in this area.

He is widely considered among the major authors of the 20th century in his home country.