I never talk about the negative side of my life. First of all, because I don’t want to complain - I was a fighter who didn’t get lucky in direct combat and fighters cannot and should not lament their fate because they fought not because anyone forced them, but because they consciously wanted to.

The name of Gramsci has become a stable point of reference in the ranks of the labor and progressive movements, in the East and the West, in Europe and the United States, in Latin America and Japan. Everywhere, the wealth of applications and the breadth of the themes of his perception are emphasized, along with the originality of a stance where the relationship between action, the will of the people, and objective conditions is defined without dogmatism and without empiricism.

To read Gramsci's political texts historically does not mean that one wants to diminish their urgent relevance. On the contrary. It means understanding the main causes of a living method, recognizing and examining a theme of renewal of the movement, and a search around the driving forces of change in a world that remains unjust to this day.

For the life of his country, for the struggles of the popular classes, Gramsci was an exceptional witness. However, this is not the final reason for the importance of his texts. These texts provide valuable material for the history of the labor movement, a source and at the same time an interpretative framework for the difficult battles of the future. Their value remains timeless, as, by common acknowledgment, the great personal strength, the stamp of Gramsci's discourse, makes them a classic work of global political literature.

[Excerpt from a publisher's or edition's presentation text]