In Danger

Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975) was a major cultural figure in post-WW2 Italy, well-known as a poet, novelist, communist intellectual, and filmmaker. Controversial and openly homosexual, Pasolini was brutally murdered at the age of 53. Editor Jack Hirschman is an internationally-renowned poet and translator. A former poet-laureate of San Francisco, and editor of "The Artaud Anthology," Hirschman has written many books, including "Front Lines: Selected Poems," "All That's Left," and his 900-page masterwork "The Arcanes."

"[Pasolini's] moral passion, analytical intelligence, and the stark beauty of his work make him one of the giants of Italian literature."—Village Voice"Patriotic poetry usually comes out of a right-wing tradition and is nationalistic, but Pasolini's great originality was to be a citizen-poet of the left . . . He wept over the ruins of Italy but without a hint of rhetoric."—Alberto Moravia"In an era when Italy produced a bumper crop of difficult, passionate artists, he may have been the . . . most prodigiously talented."—A. O. Scott