“You’re Doing the Work for Them”: Claudia Durastanti on Class and Literature

Audio 33 Claudia Durastanti was born in Brooklyn in the eighties and grew up between the US and rural southern Italy. Her novel *La Straniera* was a finalist for the Premio Strega. The English translation Strangers I Know received a PEN award. She now lives in Rome, where she writes and translates, including the latest Italian edition of *The Great Gatsby*. For Berlin Review, Claudia wrote about transfuge de classe narratives, the genre of literature where writers from poor backgrounds escape their circumstances and look back on their upbringings with a mix of shame, guilt and pride. You can read about why Claudia says this genre began booming just as the reality of upward mobility for working class people became out-of-reach. Read her essay, “A Literature for the Downwardly Mobile,” at https://blnreview.de/en/ausgaben/2026-06/durastanti-literature-for-the-downwardly-mobile Subscribe to Berlin Review — essays, criticism, and fiction from around the world. From €5/month: https://blnreview.de/en/subscribe Airlift is produced in the Studio of Jacobin Germany. Hosted by Lauren Oyler and Tobias Haberkorn.