The Little World of Don Camillo by Giovanni Guareschi

The Little World of Don Camillo by Giovanni Guareschi

In Don Camillo's Little World, where eternal forces grapple with the absurd drama of everyday life, hilarious and unearthly things can happen. If you keep this in mind you will have no difficulty in getting to know the village priest and his adversary, Peppone, the communist mayor. Nor will you be surprised when a third person watches the goings-on from a big cross in the village church and not infrequently intervenes... These enchanting, wise and strangely moving tales of life in Italy's Emilia-Romagna continue to enthral millions of readers of all ages around the world. In this newly translated volume, many are available in English for the very first time.

'Giovanni Guareschi's tales of Don Camillo, the Italian priest with a hefty left hook, are absolutely delightful in their satirical swipes at human weakness' Paul Merton

Giovanni Guareschi was born in 1909 in Fontanelle di Roccabianca in the Province of Parma. In 1926 his family succumbed to the economic depression under the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini, which meant that Giovanni had to leave the University of Parma without a degree and went to work in a sugar factory, a bicycle compound and variously as a sign painter and mandolin teacher. A break came after he began submitting cartoons to the satirical magazine Bertoldo and from 1936 he was the chief editor of Bertoldo. In 1943, after the Allies invaded Italy he was arrested by the Germans and incarcerated in prison camps in Poland, where he used his developing talents as journalist, writer, sketcher and cartoonist to become one of the ‘animators’ of the Italian Resistance. Among the partisans in the mountains, communists fought alongside monarchists, republicans and Catholics, burying their differences for the good of the people. Here unity, community, freedom over political ideology, individual responsibility, and a sense of belonging were the values that defeated fascism, and post-war became the values which inspired Guareschi’s own weekly satirical magazine, Candido, and his fictional stories. The big political picture became, in microcosm, the Little World of Don Camillo, the particular tensions and need for unity transferring to the fictional Don Camillo and his natural enemy, Peppone, the Communist Mayor, while the voice of Guareschi's conscience became that of his third main character high up on the cross above the altar of the village church, forever surprising us mere mortals with his warmth and wisdom. A full biography of the author is printed in the latest edition of The Little World of Don Camillo.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781900064071
ISBN 10	1900064073
Title	The Little World of Don Camillo
Author	Giovanni Guareschi
Series	The Don Camillo Series
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Pilot Productions Ltd
Year published	2013-09-19
Number of pages	272
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.