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Article: THE OUTSKIRTS OF LITERATURE: UNCOVERING THE MUNITIONS FACTORY IN "A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DEAD".(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Hemingway Review
- Article date:
- March 22, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Ernest Hemingway Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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BOLLATE IS A BIG TOWN in the outskirts of Milan, built for the most part in the 1960s, during the great migration of workers from southern Italy. There are no monuments, historical buildings, famous streets, or any of the things that usually attract a foreign tourist to a European city. It's hard to imagine that Ernest Hemingway not only visited Bollate, but also set a portion of one of his short stories, "A Natural History of the Dead" in the town.
"I first saw the inversion of the usual sex of the dead after the explosion of a munition [sic] factory which had been situated in the countryside near Milan, Italy" Hemingway wrote (SS 441-2). Then, any Hemingway ...