Eurialo De Michelis

De Michelis was born in Salerno, although his family was a northern one, originating in Liguria and Piedmont. While he was still young they moved back to the north, settling in Vicenza in the Veneto, where his father, a Methodist minister, had been invited to take on his own parish. De Michelis launched his literary career with a volume of poetry published in 1927 and entitled Aver vent'anni (loosely, "Aged twenty") which was followed by his first narrative work, Adamo (1930), three years later. This marked him out as a proponent of the new neorealist literary movement. He moved from Vicenza to Rome in 1932. After producing two collections of short stories - Bugie (1931) and Distacco (1934) - he devoted himself principally to non-fiction, producing studies of Grazia Deledda, Federigo Tozzi, Giovanni Verga, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Alberto Moravia, Alessandro Manzoni, Gabriele D'Annunzio and Giuseppe Gioachino Belli. Later he returned to another focus which was on poetry, with significant collections published in 1962 and in 1965 (Poesie a ritroso and Viaggio in carrozza). In 1933 he teamed up with Mario Pannunzio and Antonio Delfini to create what became the liberal-leaning Oggi magazine, described originally as "a weekly journal of literature and the arts" (Settimanale di lettere ed arti).