Reading The Little World of Don Camillo is to travel to the Valley of the River Po, Italy's widest and most fertile plain, with its unique atmosphere, culture and history. And to do so in the incomparable company of a cast of characters who testify to the exquisite humour and humanity of their creator.
In the Little World, eternal forces grapple with the absurd drama of everyday life and hilarious and unearthly things tend to happen. Keep this in mind and you will have no difficulty in getting to know the village priest, Don Camillo, 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 intercede...
These enchanting, wise and strangely moving stories of life in the Lower Plain have for years enthralled millions of readers of all ages around the world. They have been feted not only in books but in films, on radio and TV. Now they are available in paperback, ebook and audio editions faithful to the original manuscripts of their author and with many stories available in English for the first time.
The Author
Giovanni Guareschi is a shrewd satirist. Beneath the warmth and humour of life in La Bassa he shakes us out of our ideological straightjackets and marks out a path to true freedom of conscience, good for all times and all places.
The Translator
Adam Elgar is a young award-winning translator and poet with a profound empathy with the spirit of Italy.
Reviews
'Written with such warmth and simplicity, so concerned with the trivialities of everyday life and giving us so shrewd a glimpse into the minds of the people . . .' London Evening News
Don Camillo enters the magisterium
Said Pope Francis in 2015, 'Thinking of the simplicity of fictional characters such as Don Camillo and his sidekick Peppone, I find it striking how, in Guareschi's stories, the prayers of a good parish priest go hand in hand with his evident closeness to the people.'