Moon and Bonfires. A Beautiful Summer in Italian.

The book presents two works by the remarkable Italian neo-realist writer, poet, and translator Cesare Pavese: «Moon and Bonfires» and «A Beautiful Summer».

The novel «A Beautiful Summer» won the main Italian literary award «Strega». Italy in the 1930s, a working-class... suburb of Turin. Against this backdrop unfolds the vivid and dramatic love story of sixteen-year-old Ginia and the artist Guido. Ginia strives to break free from the dull reality and lives in anticipation of a beautiful summer.

The protagonist of «Moon and Bonfires», an Italian who made a career in America, is drawn to the past, because only there, in his homeland, will his life gain meaning — with old friends among sun-drenched vineyards, walnut groves, and hills. However, upon returning, the hero realizes that everything has changed — both the places and the people, and only the smoke from bonfires, smoldering and never extinguishing, occasionally rekindling, remains the same — from the past...