A great choral story and an unrepeatable literary case. More than 1000 pages of heart-wrenching and riveting stories of fictional characters inspired by real-life events and the Author’s background and memories.Translated into 8 languages, still in print in Italy and France selling millions of copies so far.
The protagonists are a young man coming to age and his Italian family and friends whose destinies merge with the most harsh dramas of 1900. From the mid-1930s to the 1970s the story runs directly through the tragedy of World War II. From the Lombard territory around Milano and Como to the frozen landscapes of the Russian Campaign, to the horrors of the Italian and European civil wars, to the uncertainties of the first post-war period in Europe in 1946. A great desire for redemption and reconstruction by the younger generations, up to the violence and ideologies of the 1970s in Italy and Europe. Mirroring the nowadays age of incertitudes and perennial, scattered wars of the 2020s.

Eugenio CORTI (1921-2014) is one of the best Italian writers of the historical narrative of the XX century. He has always been a great literary master outside any group or school; with a strong sense of independence, he conceived the writer as a true witness of his time. He cultivated a personal slant towards the international cultural debate. His archives are preserved in Milan at the Ambrosian Library and the Catholic University.