Marie Louise Berneri

Marie Louise Berneri was recorded at birth as Maria Luisa Berneri. (Boston: Beacon Press. Pp. Xi, 339. $3.75.), American Political Science Review, 1952, Journey Through Utopia. (Routledge and Kegan Paul; 16s.), Blackfriars, 1951, Un viaje a través de la utopía: anarquismo, imaginación geográfica y futuros performativos en la obra de Marie-Louise Berneri, Investigaciones Geográficas, 2019, Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia.

Marie Louise Berneri studied at University of Paris. The recorded working language is Italian, English and Spanish. The field of work recorded is psychology. Places of work recorded in the authority are Paris. Works named in the authority record are Journey through Utopia.

• Name — Marie Louise Berneri • Birth Name — Maria Luisa Berneri • Born — 1 March 1918 • Birthplace — Arezzo, Kingdom of Italy • Died — 13 April 1949 • Place of death — London, England • Education — The Sorbonne • Occupation — * Activist • author • psychologist • Movement — Anarchism • Mother — Giovanna Berneri • Father — Camillo Berneri • Relatives — Giliane Berneri (sister) Marie Louise Berneri (born Maria Luisa Berneri; 1 March 1918 – 13 April 1949) was an anarchist activist and author. She was born in Arezzo, 50 miles southeast of Florence Italy, the elder daughter of two extremely well-known anarchist parents, Camillo Berneri, an anti-fascist activist, and his wife Giovanna Berneri, a militant libertarian anarchist. However, she spent much of her life in Spain and France - Paris, and finally in England - London. In London she became a member of the editorial collectives of Spain and the World, Revolt! Incorporating Spain and the World, War Commentary and Freedom, to all of which she contributed many articles. She wrote a survey of utopias, Journey Through Utopia, which was first published in 1950 and re-issued in 2020. Neither East Nor West, a collection of her articles in War Commentary and Freedom, was first published in 1952 and republished in 1988. In December 1948 Berneri gave birth at home to a boy, who died shortly afterwards. She died on 13 April 1949 at the age of 31, from heart failure, after having contracted a viral infection during childbirth. With the sole exception of the first paragraph by N W and H B, and ignoring the first paragraph, Ed (2004) reproduced their obituary of Berneri. She was cremated at Kensal Green Cemetery and her ashes were scattered in a North London park. Berneri had four languages: Italian, French, Spanish and English. Fellow English anarchist Colin Ward (2014) reflected: 'I have often wondered about the books she might have written but for the tragedy of her death'. George Woodcock, the Canadian-born anarchist with whom Berneri closely collaborated, was the last person he said goodbye to before he and his wife left to sail for Canada. He recalled in his 1982 Letter to the past, the first volume of his autobiography, that they discussed the possibility of continuing their collaboration by writing letters to each other recounting their respective childhoods which some day they might publish as a dialogue, which he alluded to in the title of his book.

Camillo Berneri took his family to into exile in Paris, France after Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator, seized power in 1922. While she was living in Paris, Maria Luisa adopted the French equivalents of her forenames, Marie Louise Berneri. She passed her baccalauréat and, on the strength of it, began to study psychology at the Sorbonne University. While there, with comrades of various nationalities, she attended an informal class on anarchism that was given by the Russian anarchist Volin. However, in early May 1937, her father was assassinated by communist gunmen in Barcelona in Spain. Shortly aftwards she left Paris and moved to London.

Berneri lived in London with fellow anarchist activist Vernon Richards, who was the son of two Italian émigrés, Emidio Recchioni and his wife Costanza (née Benericetti). Towards the end of the year she married him and consequently became a British citizen. In 1939 she had her first article in War Commentary published. Around 1941 she met George Woodcock, who Herbert Read described her to him as being 'one of the most important members of the Freedom group.' By the April of 1945 she had become was one of the four editors of War Commentary, who were tried for the crime of incitement to disaffection. Richards and Berneri were worried that, if they all became imprisoned, there would be nobody left to run War Commentary. Consequently Berneri asked George Woodcock, who had contributed articles to it if he would become its editor. Because Berneri's husband was a co-defendant, she was acquitted on a legal technicality that allows that a wife cannot conspire with her husband. Consequently, Berneri was able to join Woodcock to become a co-editor with him. Woodcock (1982) recalled: In 1948 Berneri attended the first post-war International Anar chist Conference in Paris as a member of the British delegation. Her mother and sister (medical doctor Giliane Berneri) also attended as members of the Italian and French delegations. She received much praise for her Freedom Press pamphlet, the anti-Stalinist Workers in Stalin's Russia (1944). She was also one of the first people in Britain to promote the ideas of Wilhelm Reich.

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Marie Louise Berneri was recorded at birth as Maria Luisa Berneri. The authorities additionally record the headings Marie-Louise Berneri and Marie Louise Richards. Her recorded languages were Italian, English, Spanish and French. She was the child of Camillo Berneri. She married Vernon Richards.

Marie Louise Berneri is recorded as writer, psychologist, anarchist and journalist.

• Berneri, Marie Louise (1918-1949) at the Kate Sharpley Library • Bishopsgate Institute Freedom Press Library • Freedom Defence Committee, Jul 1945 - July 1946 • Freedom Press Newspaper Archive • Marie-Louise Berneri page at Libcom • Marie-Louise Berneri page at Marxists.org • Marie-Louise Berneri. The Anarchist Encyclopedia at Recollection Books. • War Commentary (1939-1945)