The Moon and the Bonfires

Cesare Pavese · 1908–1950 · Italy

Originally La luna e i falò (Italian)

Why it matters

An emigrant returns from America to his Piedmont village to find the war has scarred everything he came home for. Pavese's final novel makes the impossibility of return into aching lyric, published months before his suicide.

At a glance

Nonlinear memory-driven structure and elliptical dialogue obscure a simple plot.