Futurism in exile: Nanni Leone Castelli in Mexico

Abstract

Mexico was a receptacle for significant political emigration during the interwar period. Among these emigrants, expatriates, or exiles who left their homeland in disagreement with various authoritarian political regimes of the time, there are also some Italians. Among them stands out a sui generis futurist and “dannunzian” intellectual, Nanni Leone Castelli, a writer, publicist, and cultural and political organizer active in the “radical” circles of the postwar period. In the turbulent life of Castelli, his long stay in Mexico (from 1926 to 1970) is characterized by his lively participation in activities of various kinds, anticlerical, radical, and antifascist, as well as his intellectual production as an editor and founder of newspapers, and author of books. This study presents the figure of Castelli in the context of the politics of his time, especially his complex position as a political heterodox intellectual in search of a revolutionary and anti-imperialist formula between the Italian experience and Latin American reality.