Cesare Pavese

Anguila, the narrator, is a successful businessman lured home from California to the Piedmontese village where he was fostered by peasants. After 20 years, so much has changed. Slowly, with the power of memory, he is able to piece together the past and relate it to what he finds left in the present. He looks at the lives and sometimes violent fates of the villagers he has known since childhood, seeing the poverty, ignorance, or indifference that binds them to the hills and valleys against the beauty of the landscape and the rhythm of the seasons. With stark realism and muted compassion, this novel weaves separate strands of narrative together, bringing them to a stark and poignant climax.

The Moon and the Bonfire

ChiaraB

Lorenzo

After 20 years in America, a successful businessman returns to the rustic Piedmontese communities which were riven by fascism. Much has changed since the war, and still more would like to be forgotten and buried. Memories return to the narrator as he looks at the lives and sometimes violent fates of the villagers he has known since childhood, and rediscovers the poverty, ignorance, or indifference that binds them to the hills and valleys against the beauty of the landscape and the rhythm of the seasons. With simple poetic force, Pavese weaves separate strands of narrative together, bringing them to a stark and poignant climax. Part of the new look Peter Owen Modern Classics range featuring a logo crafted by graphic design icon Alvin Lustig.