«Senza racconto, senza voce». Letteratura come etnografia e azione sociale in Danilo Montaldi (e Nanni Balestrini)

This article examines the work of Danilo Montaldi through the lens of the relationship between literature, ethnography, and political action, focusing in particular on Autobiografie della leggera (1961). Through the collection of life histories narrated by marginalized individuals, members of the subproletariat, and social outcasts, Montaldi develops a narrative practice that intertwines orality and writing, social inquiry and literary experimentation, thereby restoring visibility and agency to subjects historically excluded from official forms of representation. The article argues that Montaldi’s approach rejects both populist idealization and the objectivist assumptions of bourgeois sociology, advancing instead a dialogic and relational mode of narration grounded in social conflict and the autonomy of subaltern subjectivities. In its second part, the essay places Montaldi’s work in dialogue with the fiction of Nanni Balestrini, particularly Gli invisibili, highlighting a continuity in the representation of antagonistic subjectivities and in the construction of hybrid narrative forms that combine orality, testimony, and textual montage. The analysis ultimately proposes the existence of a counter-canon within contemporary Italian literature, shaped by the convergence of ethnographic practice, linguistic experimentation, and political commitment.