Né in 1960 in Venetie (Italy), Vitaliano Trevisan passed away on January 7, 2022. Throughout his life, he practiced a thousand trades: geometer, dealer, warehouseman, mason, roofer, furniture designer, ice cream maker, and many others. Enriched by this experience, he wrote “Works,” which recounts work in Northeast Italy from the 1970s to the 1990s. There, work is a religious practice. Lives, in all their aspects, depend on it. Through his lens, we witness the transformations of Italy and Trevisan’s life.
The Critics’ Opinion on “Works”
Marie Sorbier: “It’s not a book about politics, but it’s a political book. I wondered as I was reading, do we have other books about work? So yes, Pontus, in poetry, about his work in the factory. Francois Bon had written about work. But it’s quite rare in novels for work to be at the center. Not romanticized work, not work in its rage or acceptance, but daily work, experienced as a means of making a living. There is no idealization of work, it’s quite peculiar.”
Johan Faerber: “Every time he starts a new job, it’s exhaustion, domination, exploitation, there is a Marxist rendering. But what’s astonishing is the feeling of astonishment in the face of the necessity of doing things, the fear, and that’s Beckett. To be afraid of failing in this completely industrialized plain of Venetie, disfigured by work, in an Italy that has become inseparable from work.”
More Information
“Works” by Vitaliano Trevisan, released on January 22, 2026 (Verdier), translated from Italian by Christophe Mileschi and Martin Rueff.
Audio Excerpts
Reading of an excerpt from “Works” by Jules Barbier.
