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...
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 ...
Fontamara is one of the Italian classics of the twentieth century. It was written in 1933 and was well-known in translation before it could be published in Italy. In England it was very popular in its Pengiun edition. Its author, Ignazio Silone, was a controversial figure throughout his life. He was a communist until 1931, later referring to himself as a 'Socialist without a party and a Christian without a church.' He wrote Fontamara first and foremost as an antifascist, setting it in his own region of Abruzzo, east of Rome. He describes the sufferings of the peasants, the cafoni, still...
Fontamara is one of the Italian classics of the twentieth century. It was written in 1933 and was well-known in translation before it could be publish...