Did this 1940 novel use symbolism not for aesthetic purposes, but, instead, to conceal its critique of Italian fascism from the regime’s censors?

Lawrence Venuti
Lawrence Venuti translates from Italian, French, and Catalan. He is, most recently, the author of Contra Instrumentalism: A Translation Polemic (2019), the editor of The Translation Studies Reader (4th ed., 2021), and the translator of J. V. Foix’s Daybook 1918: Early Fragments (2019).