A master of style and a “doctor of the poor,” a veteran of the Great War and a sharp scourge of Western man, author of masterpieces of world literature as well as the polemical pamphlets that earned him literary marginalization during his lifetime: Louis-Ferdinand Céline was all this and more, a disenchanted witness of the twentieth century who knew, lived, and at times suffered all its masks. Maurice Bardèche, an essayist as controversial as—if not more than—Céline, yet also a refined literary critic and author of works on Proust, Balzac, and Bloy, removes in his book “Louis-Ferdinand Céline” (Genoa, 2025) all the Célinian masks, offering readers an extraordinarily fresh portrait of the life and works of the great French novelist.
On November 29, 2025, at 5:00 pm, at the Palazzo della Cultura in Catania, the book presentation of “Louis-Ferdinand Céline” by Maurice Bardèche will take place — free admission
The cultural organizer Giovanni Coppola will converse with the publisher and essayist Andrea Lombardi. The event will be moderated by Salvatore Massimo Fazio, with readings by Flavia Lauriola and Orazio Sorace, and an introduction by Enrico Trantino, Mayor of Catania. Free admission.
Andrea Lombardi, born in Genoa in 1973, is passionate about twentieth-century history and literature and is the curator of the first Italian website entirely dedicated to Louis-Ferdinand Céline (http://lf-celine.blogspot.com). Among his most recent works of literary criticism, we may recall *I tesori inediti di Louis-Ferdinand Céline* by Jacques Joset (Massa 2024); *Louis-Ferdinand Céline* by Maurice Bardèche (Genoa 2025, edited by Moreno Marchi); *Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Un profeta dell’Apocalisse* (Milan, 2018; paperback 2021, preface by Stenio Solinas, Honorable Mention at the 2024 “Antonio Semeria” Sanremo International Literary Prize, “Nonfiction” category); *Céline contro Vailland* (Massa, 2019, with a contribution by Giampiero Mughini); *Nausea di Céline* by Jean-Pierre Richard (Florence, 2019); *Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Il cane di Dio* by Jean Dufaux and Jacques Terpant (Milan, 2018); *La morte di Céline* by Dominique de Roux (Rome, 2015); *Céline ci scrive* (Rome, 2011); *Un samurai d’Occidente. Il breviario dei ribelli* by Dominique Venner (Rome 2013, preface by Stenio Solinas); *Grande Ospizio Occidentale* by Eduard Limonov (Milan 2023, preface by Alain de Benoist); *Ernst Jünger nelle tempeste d’acciaio della Grande Guerra* by Nils Fabiansson (Genoa 2024); and the exhibition-book *Profeti inascoltati del ’900*, drawings by Dionisio di Francescantonio, curated by Andrea Lombardi and Miriam Pastorino (Genoa 2022, preface by Vittorio Sgarbi).
He is a member and Italian correspondent of the SLC (Société des Lecteurs de Céline).