Unseen

For a brief explosive period in the mid-1970s the young and the unemployed of Italy's cities joined the workers in an unexpectedly militant movement known simply as Autonomy (<i>Autonomia</i>). Its politics of refusal united its opponents behind draconian measures more severe than any seen since the war. <p/>Nanni Balestrini the poet of youth rebellion himself a victim of that repression has invented a remarkable fictional form to express the hopes and conflicts of the movement. In spare but vivid prose The Unseen follows Autonomy's trajectory through the eyes of a single working-class protagonist--from high-school rebellion squatting and attempts to set up a free radio station to arrest and the brutalities of imprisonment. This is a powerful and gripping novel: a rare evocation of the intensity of commitment the passion of politics.