by Piers Dudgeon (Editor), Piers Dudgeon (Translator), Giovanni Guareschi (Author)
No. 11 - The New Don Camillo
More shrewd and colourful observations of life in Italy's widest and most fertile plain, stories so telling that time and again they reverberate with insights relevant not only locally but also internationally, and even to our lives today.
Guareschi mines his satire with an eye for a paradox. War creates unity (Peppone battles side-by-side with Don Camillo in the Italian Resistance). Then peace spells conflict, as the communist mayor and village priest become the local bigwigs in all-out war between East and West.
Meanwhile, Christ above the altar in the village church strives with wisdom, irony and gentle humour to keep the peace between the two titans, their minds clouded with ideology and the need to win.
'One of the most prescient and perceptive voices of the twentieth century.' Tobias Jones, The Dark Heart of Italy