My Brilliant Friend
About the book
Elena and Lila’s friendship begins in a poor neighbourhood of Naples.
Original title: L’amica geniale
Europe · A READING GUIDE
Italy
Ferrante offers friendship and growing up; Calvino short accounts of imaginary cities. Ginzburg and Pavese connect the past with family or a place of origin. Lampedusa portrays a changing aristocratic world, while Eco makes a medieval abbey the setting of a criminal and intellectual mystery. Morante, Carlo Levi and Primo Levi lead into different experiences of Fascism and war; Primo Levi’s edition contains two separate testimonies. Buzzati offers a shorter route into a life spent waiting.
WHERE TO START
- My Brilliant FriendElena Ferrante
- Invisible CitiesItalo Calvino
- The LeopardGiuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Books to begin with
An editorial selection · not rankedNo matches. Try another language or search term.
Invisible Cities
About the book
Marco Polo describes extraordinary cities to Kublai Khan.
Original title: Le città invisibili
The Leopard
About the book
A Sicilian prince watches the aristocratic world decline during Italian unification.
Original title: Il Gattopardo
The Name of the Rose
About the book
William of Baskerville investigates a series of deaths in a medieval abbey with a celebrated library.
Original title: Il nome della rosa
Family Lexicon
About the book
Family sayings become a key to memories of life during Italian Fascism.
Original title: Lessico famigliare
History
About the book
Schoolteacher Ida and her sons struggle to survive in wartime and postwar Rome.
Original title: La Storia
The Tartar Steppe
About the book
Officer Giovanni Drogo spends his life in a remote fortress awaiting an enemy’s arrival.
Original title: Il deserto dei Tartari
The Moon and the Bonfires
About the book
An emigrant returns from America to his native Piedmont and discovers traces of wartime violence.
Original title: La luna e i falò
Christ Stopped at Eboli
About the book
A doctor exiled by Fascist authorities describes life in impoverished Lucania.
Original title: Cristo si è fermato a Eboli
If This Is a Man and The Truce
About the book
Two testimonies recount Auschwitz and the author’s postwar journey home.
Original title: Se questo è un uomo; La tregua
The Baron in the Trees
About the book
A boy’s rebellion becomes a lifetime in the treetops above a changing Europe.
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller
About the book
A reader searching for a novel’s continuation encounters a succession of interrupted stories.
Context and sources
Sources on authors and their connections to this country. Specific edition details appear beside each book. Polish and English originals are not labelled as translations.
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