It Depends

Eugenio Montale was born in Genoa, Italy on October 12, 1896. Largely self-educated, he was an infantry officer in World War I and then became a spectator, rather than an activist, during the 20 years of fascism. He lived in Genoa for his first 30 years, where he started his career as a journalist, and then moved to Florence, where he worked first for a publishing house and then as a reference librarian. After World War II, he settled down in Milan as literary and music critic and special correspondent for Italy's leading newspaper, Il Corriere della Sera.

He is often considered to be one of the founders of the poetic school known as hermeticism, an Italian variant of the French symbolist movement. His books of poems and essays include Cuttlefish Bones (1925), Occasions (1939), The Storm and Other Things (1956), and Diary of 1971 and 1972 (1973). He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975. He died on September 12, 1981 in Milan.

In 1996, a work appeared called Posthumous Diary (Diario Postumo) that purported to have been constructed by Montale before his death with the help of the young poet Annalisa Cima. Critical reaction at first varied, with some believing that Cima had forged the collection outright, though now the work is generally considered authentic.

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