This book focuses on the autobiographical poetry of early 20th century author Antonia Pozzi and her lifelong friend and fellow poet, Vittorio Sereni, most particularly on the autobiographical format of their writing, and its role as a mode of 'passive resistance' to Fascist control; a mode of resistance familiar to women's writing even before the onset of Fascist totalitarianism. While Sereni is by far the better-known author, his response to the war experience and, particularly, to imprisonment recalls Pozzi's work on a number of levels. In the 'diaries' of both authors, autobiography functions as a means of constantly reasserting the self as a unique and separate individual against the totalizing forces of Fascist propaganda. This phenomenon is apparent in Pozzi's work long before it can be seen in Sereni's work, indeed while Pozzi died in 1938; it is only after being drafted into the army in 1941 that Sereni really begins to focus on poetry as personal narrative.