A devastating novel set in wartime Italy from the great twentieth-century writer, in a new translation by Tim Parks Shortlisted for The Society of Authors Translation Award 2022 June, 1943. Allied aircraft are bombing industrial Turin; Fascist Italy seems to be on its knees. Corrado, a teacher, is staying in relative safety in the hills above the city. He has no attachments and claims to be happy that way. But against his better judgement he is drawn into a circle of anti-fascists who congregate at a nearby tavern. As the authorities' net closes around his friends, Corrado must face a painful choice- emotional and political commitment, with all its dangers - or devastating retreat.