Career
Chilanti wrote an October 1939 article in Benito Mussolini"s Gerarchia welcoming the Hitler-Stalin pact as heralding the future collaboration of the Soviet and Fascist régimes. During the war Chilanti became increasingly disillusioned with his government"s failure to live up to its purported anti-capitalist objectives. While seeking to advance such radical policies he formed a group around the newspaper Ventuno Domani, whose collaborators included novelist Vasco Pratolini.
This "anarcho-Fascist" circle drew the attentions of philo-Nazi American poet Ezra Pound.
Chilanti was quickly arrested and sent into internal exile. After liberation Chilanti joined the Italian Communist Party.
He later grew disillusioned and signed up to the extra-parliamentary Avanguardia Operaia. As a result of throat cancer Chilanti was unable to speak in his final years.
Chilanti wrote numerous novels of which many were of a semi-autobiographical bent.