La fabbrica che non c'è (più)? Un percorso sulla letteratura industriale

With the growth of industry in Italy at the beginning of the last century, authors and intellectuals focused their attention on its role in people’s lives. Thus, a thread of texts that places the chronotope of industry at its centre has spread in literature: Ottiero Ottieri, Paolo Volponi, Nanni Balestrini are just some of the names that gave space to this theme. This thread, for many, reached its end with La dismissione (2002), a novel by Erman-no Rea that recounts the closure of the Ilva Italsider facility in Bagnoli. The steel factory was established on the western border of Naples in the early 20th century, reaching its peak in the 1970s. Bagnoli was created as a living centre for the factory’s employees, but went beyond its function as a workplace. Rea, through the voice of the protagonist Vincen-zo Buonocore, represents in an icastic manner the symbiotic relationship that the factory generates with its inhabitants. The article proposes, after an introduction on industrial li-terature, to analyse the chronotope and the forms of narration, often documentary, of the Neapolitan factory.