The letters in this book were composed in prison, under trying circumstances. The text is very dense – ‘shorthand’ and ‘baroque’, as Negri himself admits; take for example the phrase lo stuzzichino è giapponese in Letter 19, translated here ‘Like Japanese soldiers from a war long since over.’ I have paraphrased where necessary and have kept explanatory notes to a minimum.
The editorial process of writing this book was somewhat unusual. As Negri explained in an interview that I did with him in 2013, in Rebibbia there were four of them in the cell – Negri, Franco Tommei, and two other comrades (varying according to the vagaries of prisoners being moved between cells). Negri would write the text by hand, to provide the basic manuscript; Tommei would then type the text on a manual typewriter, chapter by chapter; and then it would be sent to the outside world.
Inevitably there were scribal errors – some we have discovered only today, others perhaps will never be discovered – but the book was eventually completed for publication. It emerged wreathed in tobacco smoke. As the author recalls: ‘In the cells we were all of us smokers. We smoked all the time. That was what destroyed my lungs, with the effects that I feel today.’
In accordance with my previous practice, in places where the sense suggests the French contrast between pouvoir and puissance, I have translated potere as ‘Power’ (capitalised) and have generally rendered potenza as potenza, occasionally opting for ‘potentiality’ where that helps the meaning.
Special thanks to Manuela Tecusan (Cambridge) and Tim Murphy (Oklahoma) for help with sourcing citations. Many of the citations were unsourced in the original letters, often taken from books that arrived in Negri’s cell more or less by happenstance. As the author explains: ‘The Hofmannsthal play. Which one was it? Maybe it was Elektra. How do you expect me to remember? This was thirty years ago, and I was in prison, and I don’t have the manuscript. You can tell them that in the preface.’
Cambridge, 5.viii.2014