When it first appeared in 1936, Bread and Wine stunned the world with its exposure of Italy's fascist state, depicting that regime's use of brute force for the body and lies for the mind. Through the story of Pietro Spina, who returns from fifteen years of exile to organize the peasants of his native Abruzzi into a revolutionary movement, this courageous work bears witness to the truth about any totalitarian regime--a warning as relevant today as it was in Mussolini's Italy.

Surprisingly tender and rich in humor, this twentieth-century masterpiece brings to life priests...

Here are two major works by the famed Polish novelist and dramatist Witold Gombrowicz. The first, Cosmos, a metaphysical thriller, revolves around an absurd investigation. It is set in provincial Poland and narrated by a seedy, pathetic, and witty student, who is charming and appalling by turns, and whose voice is dense with the richly palpable description that characterizes Gombrowicz's writing. The second, Pornografia, explores the sinister effect the young can have on the old. To serve their own secret eroticism, two aging intellectuals encourage a young couple to commit murder. Although...