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Lo scrittore francese sessualità, che creerà
fotografato nella sua
abitazione nel 1984. non pochi imbarazzi
Sopra, Villa Lysis. ai suoi familiari.
La costruzione si trova
sulla strada che conduce Figlio unico di una
a Villa Jovis.
famiglia dell’alta borghesia
di Castres, nel
The French writer
photographed at his
home in 1984. Above,
Villa Lysis. The house sud est della Francia,
is located on the road Peyrefitte era nato
leading to Villa Jovis.
nell’agosto del 1907.
Studiò dai gesuiti e si laureò prima in lettere
e poi in scienze politiche, per intraprendere
la carriera diplomatica. Come prima sede ottenne
Atene, dove lavorò dal 1933 al 1938.
Di quell’esperienza ci lascerà un romanzo
folgorante, Ambasciate, in cui rivelerà nefandezze
e perversioni dell’alta diplomazia e per
il quale subirà l’ennesimo processo.
Tornato in Francia, prestò servizio al ministero
dell’Interno, ma durante il governo di
Vichy fu accusato di collaborazionismo ed
esonerato dal lavoro, accusa poi dimostratasi
infondata. Decise allora di dedicarsi completamente
alla narrativa, eleggendo l’Italia
a sua patria ideale e spostandosi per lunghi
periodi tra Capri e Taormina. Anni prodigiosi
e produttivi, una vita tesa al raggiungimento
del suo libero ideale di vita, durante i
quali lo scrittore creerà ben 17 romanzi.
«L’Italia mi ha stregato, scriveva. È il solo
paese dove si gusta ancora la gioia di vivere.
Nessun popolo ha ereditato una così solare
civiltà». E Capri era l’apice di questo idillio
perenne, il luogo in cui immergersi nella natura
e nella totale liberazione degli istinti.
Sulle tracce di Fersen
L’isola azzurra dei primi anni Cinquanta era
frequentata da nobili decaduti e spiriti bizzarri,
coppie eccentriche impegnate a vivere
la propria passione alla luce del sole. Dopo i
“capresi d’elezione” come lo scrittore scozzese
Norman Douglas, il medico svedese Axel
Munthe e il famoso impresario di balletti
Sergej Djagilev, che avevano fatto la storia
di Capri dei primi decenni del Novecento,
altri personaggi la stavano invadendo, per
dar vita agli effervescenti anni Cinquanta e
Sessanta.
M. MASTRORILLO
THE WRITER WHO
DEFIED CONVENTION
by Giuseppe Mazzella
Peyrefitte scandalized Europe
and worshipped Capri as the
“kingdom of happiness”.
To live a life of utter freedom in the “land
with no rules”: this was the dream of
French writer Roger Peyrefitte when
he disembarked on Capri for the first time.
It was the spring of 1957. His official reason
for the trip was to do research into the life
and mysterious death of Count Jacques
d’Adelsward-Fersen forty years earlier,
and speak to people who had known him.
Peyrefitte’s idea was to write a fictionalized
biography of the count. He also happened to
be in flight from the rumours surrounding his
broken engagement to a high-society French
woman; moreover, quite a scandal had
erupted over the publication of his novel Les
amitiés particuliers, which had rocked Europe
and made Peyrefitte’s name as the author of a
cult novel for homosexuals.
Published in 1941 and reprinted a few years
later, the novel had cost its author a trial on
the grounds of its alleged immorality; the trial
ended, nevertheless, in an acquittal. Peyrefitte
would later write: “I have a weakness: I love
truth; I cultivate it and express it. And truth will
always sting, stir up scandal, and lead to a
lawsuit or two. Now I have been tried several
times, but I have never lost a case, which
means that the truth will out, in the end. This
is the sole reason for all the scandal.”
That story about the “Greek love” between
two high school students, with its tragic
denouement and its inspiration in an incident
from the writer’s own life, had revealed all
the potential risks of an overly strict religious
education, inadvertently leading youths
astray. It was during Peyrefitte’s troubled
adolescence, in fact, that he discovered his
own homosexuality, a source of no small
embarrassment to his family.
The only child of a well-to-do family in
Castres, in southeast France, Peyrefitte was
born in August 1907. He received a Jesuit
education and completed two degrees, first
in literature and then political science, before
embarking on a diplomatic career. His first
posting was Athens, where he worked from
1933 to 1938. This experience would produce
an electrifying novel, Les Ambassades, in
which Peyrefitte unveiled the perversions
and iniquities of the high-ranking diplomatic
circles; a trial inevitably followed.
Upon his return to France, the writer went to
work at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but
during the Vichy regime he was accused of
collaborationism and dismissed from his post;
the charge was later shown to be groundless.
Peyrefitte then decided to devote himself
entirely to writing novels, electing Italy
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