Berneri, Marie Louise, 1918-1949

Marie Louise Berneri (born Maria Luisa Berneri; 1 March 1918 – 13 April 1949) was an anarchist activist and author. She was born in Arezzo, 50 miles southeast of Florence Italy, the elder daughter of two extremely well-known anarchist parents, Camillo Berneri, an anti-fascist activist, and his wife Giovanna Berneri, a militant libertarian anarchist. However, she spent much of her life in Spain and France - Paris, and finally in England - London. In London she became a member of the editorial collectives of Spain and the World, Revolt! Incorporating Spain and the World, War Commentary and Freedom, to all of which she contributed many articles. She wrote a survey of utopias, Journey Through Utopia, which was first published in 1950 and re-issued in 2020. Neither East Nor West, a collection of her articles in War Commentary and Freedom, was first published in 1952 and republished in 1988. In December 1948 Berneri gave birth at home to a boy, who died shortly afterwards. She died on 13 April 1949 at the age of 31, from heart failure, after having contracted a viral infection during childbirth. With the sole exception of the first paragraph by N W and H B, and ignoring the first paragraph, Ed (2004) reproduced their obituary of Berneri. She was cremated at Kensal Green Cemetery and her ashes were scattered in a North London park. Berneri had four languages: Italian, French, Spanish and English. Fellow English anarchist Colin Ward (2014) reflected: 'I have often wondered about the books she might have written but for the tragedy of her death'. George Woodcock, the Canadian-born anarchist with whom Berneri closely collaborated, was the last person he said goodbye to before he and his wife left to sail for Canada. He recalled in his 1982 Letter to the past, the first volume of his autobiography, that they discussed the possibility of continuing their collaboration by writing letters to each other recounting their respective childhoods which some day they might publish as a dialogue, which he alluded to in the title of his book.