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Fontamara.
Milano, Mondadori, 1985, 16mo brossura con copertina illustrata a colori, pp. 235 (La Lettura).
Paperback
Published January 1, 1985
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February 15, 2026
It has been awhile since I read a novel in Italian, and I couldn't get into this at first because my reading was quite slow. My persistence was rewarded with more rapid progress and a more rewarding reading experience. Fontamara was a set text when I was learning Italian at university in the 1970s, so I had read it before and knew I would like it. It's a worm's-eye-view of tyranny, specifically a tale of the long-oppressed peasantry of Abruzzo at a time (summer 1929) when Fascism is spreading its dark wings over Italy.
Something that I had not remembered about this book was its publication history. Although written in Italian (completed in 1931), it was first published in German in 1933. No Italian publisher would touch it at the time. It cannot have been very welcome to the Nazi regime that took power in Germany in the same year - a prime candidate for the bonfire. It was popular in a few languages before it appeared at last in Italian in 1947. Ignazio Silone (pseudonym of Secondino Tranquilli, political organiser and associate of Antonio Gramsci) was a prophet without honour in his own country. For the Italian establishment, the book must, frankly, have been very uncomfortable reading on account of its exposure of social attitudes. In the novel (set in 1929) the peasants ('cafoni' in Italian) are despised and exploited. In the post-war period class barriers were apparently still in evidence. The exodus of poor rural folk from Italy seeking opportunity (and, I imagine, respect) in Australia has had a profound influence on Australian food, wine, and coffee culture. These rude folk, whose first priority on arrival was the acquisition of land and its cultivation, have contributed something important to the refinement of the Australian character.
The novel purports to be an account of events as related to Silone by 3 survivors of events in the village of Fontamara; it is effectively a 1st-person narrative in 3 voices, translated from dialect to modern Italian by its 1st audience, Silone. A great part of the novel's appeal is the humility and simplicity of the narrators - the pathos of their wry observations about their misfortunes is at once dismaying and charming. Every new trial is met with a sort of bewildered wonder, as if every outrage and injustice were no more nor less than the fixed nature of things in God's creation. There is no tub-thumping here, just a yearning to be given a fair go. One cannot but believe in the veracity of such witnesses.
For contemporary readers, the plight of Silone's 'cafoni' will resonate with stories of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories trying to get the olive harvest in while being harassed by Israeli settlers supported and abetted by the IDF (playing the role of the state in Silone's narrative). The growth of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories and the systematic dispossession of the people of Palestine are crimes against humanity comparable to the worst crimes of Mussolini's Fascists.
Something that I had not remembered about this book was its publication history. Although written in Italian (completed in 1931), it was first published in German in 1933. No Italian publisher would touch it at the time. It cannot have been very welcome to the Nazi regime that took power in Germany in the same year - a prime candidate for the bonfire. It was popular in a few languages before it appeared at last in Italian in 1947. Ignazio Silone (pseudonym of Secondino Tranquilli, political organiser and associate of Antonio Gramsci) was a prophet without honour in his own country. For the Italian establishment, the book must, frankly, have been very uncomfortable reading on account of its exposure of social attitudes. In the novel (set in 1929) the peasants ('cafoni' in Italian) are despised and exploited. In the post-war period class barriers were apparently still in evidence. The exodus of poor rural folk from Italy seeking opportunity (and, I imagine, respect) in Australia has had a profound influence on Australian food, wine, and coffee culture. These rude folk, whose first priority on arrival was the acquisition of land and its cultivation, have contributed something important to the refinement of the Australian character.
The novel purports to be an account of events as related to Silone by 3 survivors of events in the village of Fontamara; it is effectively a 1st-person narrative in 3 voices, translated from dialect to modern Italian by its 1st audience, Silone. A great part of the novel's appeal is the humility and simplicity of the narrators - the pathos of their wry observations about their misfortunes is at once dismaying and charming. Every new trial is met with a sort of bewildered wonder, as if every outrage and injustice were no more nor less than the fixed nature of things in God's creation. There is no tub-thumping here, just a yearning to be given a fair go. One cannot but believe in the veracity of such witnesses.
For contemporary readers, the plight of Silone's 'cafoni' will resonate with stories of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories trying to get the olive harvest in while being harassed by Israeli settlers supported and abetted by the IDF (playing the role of the state in Silone's narrative). The growth of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories and the systematic dispossession of the people of Palestine are crimes against humanity comparable to the worst crimes of Mussolini's Fascists.
Displaying 1 of 1 review