Pitigrilli

Pitigrilli was the pseudonym of Dino Segre (9 May 1893 – 8 May 1975), an Italian writer who made his living as a journalist and novelist. His most noted novel was Cocaina, published under his pseudonym and placed on the list of prohibited books by the Catholic Church because of his treatment of drug use (cocaina being cocaine) and sex. It has been translated into several languages and re-issued in several editions. Pitigrilli published novels up until 1974, the year before his death. He spent his later decades of life as a Catholic himself.

Pitigrilli founded the literary magazine Grandi Firme, which was published in Turin from 1924 to 1938, when it was banned under the antisemitic Italian racial laws of the Fascist government. Although baptized a Catholic, Segre was classified as Jewish at that time. His father was Jewish, and Pitigrilli had married a Jewish woman, although they had long lived apart. Claiming to seek exemption from the Racial Laws for his son, in 1938 Pitigrilli sought a ruling on his marriage from the Vatican, which held it had never happened, as it took place outside the church. They ruled his first wife was effectively a concubine.

In July 1940 in Genoa, after he had already been interned as a Jew in Uscio, a small town nearby, Pitigrilli married the attorney Lina Furlan of Turin, who had handled his case with the Vatican. A Catholic, she was violating racial purity laws by marrying someone considered to be Jewish.

Career Cover of the English edition of 18 Carat Virgin by Pitigrilli in 1933. It was first published in Italy in 1924. As a young adult, Segre started working as a journalist and novelist in Turin, a centre of literary culture. His early experiences in Paris inspired his most famous novel, Cocaine (1921), published in Italian under his pseudonym of "Pitigrilli". Due to his portrayal of drug use and sex, the Catholic Church listed it as a "forbidden book."

Despite his work for the government, Pitigrilli began to be persecuted as a Jew. His books were banned, as was his magazine, and he could not write for other magazines. In June 1940, Italy entered the war as an ally of Nazi Germany. Turin police included Pitigrilli on a list of "dangerous Jews" to be interned in the south of Italy in Apulia. He and his lawyer, with the help of the intervention of Edvige Mussolini, were able to have the place of internment changed to Uscio, a small town near the Riviera that was two hours from Turin. The priest leading mass at that time, the famed Padre Pio, said to all assembled, “Let’s pray fervently for someone who is in great need of prayer. One day he will approach the Eucharistic table and will bring many with him who have been in error like himself.” Stille noted that the Fascist secret police used intelligence from these conversations to arrest and prosecute anti-fascist Jewish friends and relatives of Pitigrilli. La Donna di 30, 40, 50, 60 Anni (1967)