Translation Tuesday: “Every Night, Returning from Life” by Cesare Pavese

February 10, 2026 | in Translations | by Sonya Gray Redi

in a deafening silence / I solitarily burn my soul

This Translation Tuesday offers a brief and invaluable glimpse into the poetry of revered Italian writer, Cesare Pavese (1908-1950). Unearthed from the original by Sonya Gray Redi, “Every Night, Returning from Life,” is a vignette from 1928 that lays bare the tortured human condition. Like the cigarette that self-immolates, the being grows warped, and authenticity remains unattainable. As the days and nights pass in perpetuity, time is the revolving axe chipping at the soul.

Every Night, Returning From Life

Every night, returning from life,

before this table

I grab a cigarette

and solitarily smoke my soul.

I feel it spasm between my fingers

and burn itself out.

With effort, it rises before my eyes

in a spectral smoke

and envelops me,

little by little, with a tired fever.

Life’s sounds and colors

no longer reach it:

all on its own, it’s tormented inside

by a sad satiety

for colors and sounds.

In the room, the light is violent

but full of gloaming.

Outside, the eternal silence of night.

Yet in the cold solitude

my tired soul

still has a lot of strength

that it gathers within

and burns with convulsive acrimony.

It contracts in my hands,

then, destroyed, it melts and dissolves

in a pale fog

no longer itself

yet contorting itself greatly.

So every night, there’s no use escaping,

in a deafening silence,

I solitarily burn my soul.

[May 14, 1928]

Translated from the Italian by Sonya Gray Redi

Cesare Pavese (1908-1950) was an influential Italian poet, writer, translator, and critic. Born in a small town in the Piedmontese countryside, he completed his PhD at the University of Turin with a thesis on Walt Whitman. As a translator, he helped introduce Italian readers to modern writers such as Joyce, Melville, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Faulkner, and many others. Accused of anti-fascism, he was briefly imprisoned and exiled to Calabria in 1935, where he completed his first book, the poetry collection Lavorare stanca (Hard Labor, 1936). After his release, he returned to Turin to work as an editor at the Einaudi publishing house. In 1950, despite being at the zenith of his career, having recently won Italy’s most prestigious award, the Strega Prize, for his novel, La luna e i falò (The Moon and the Bonfires, 1950), he succumbed to his depression and took his own life.

Sonya Gray Redi is a writer, translator, and filmmaker. Raised in Abruzzo, Italy, and the San Francisco Bay Area, she has a BA from UC San Diego and an MFA from Columbia University. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Hobart, and Screen Slate, and her translations have appeared in McSweeney’s, The Adroit Journal, and The Brooklyn Rail.

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