The Twenty-Three Days of the City of Alba: Stories [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Fenoglio, who served in the Italian partisan resistance before beginning his career as a novelist and storyteller, shares what are likely some of his own experiences during World War II. During the later part of the war, the Germans established a puppet state in Italy, with Mussolini and his fascists at the helm. Troubled with the idea of foreign rule, and inspired by American and English radio reports, partisan antifascist armies found growth. In 1944, a partisan garrison took the city of Alba, in the north of Italy, from the fascists, but only for 23 days, when the fascist armies regained the city with a brutal ferocity. Cold-blooded shootings, nightmares, rain, muddy trails, and horrible food awaited the fighters. Fenoglio recounts this segment of history in a series of short stories, as brutal in language and feeling as the fascist architecture that was still predominant during the times. Full of nonheroes, Fenoglio's book, in its own way, addresses the idea that, though war is sometimes a necessity, it should never be romanticized. Michael Spinella
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

TWO THOUSAND ITALIAN partisans took the city of Alba on October 10, 1944, and two hundred lost it to the Fascists on November 2. Among the bedraggled fighters in this historic siege was Beppe Fenoglio. He later made his debut as a writer with this collection of short stories based on his experiences in the Italian resistance movement.
The year 2002 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the collection's original publication in Italy and its first appearance in English. Fenoglio's spare, direct prose still strikes with the staccato-like force of rifle fire. He creates an intimate, unvarnished portrait of his fellow partisans: an ill-equipped, malnourished mix of trained soldiers, eager farmboys, and broken old men. Antiheroes, they all but bumbled their way into playing a crucial role in the Allied victory of World War II, then returned home to nurse their wounds.
Fenoglio's cast includes the drunken thief Blister, who opens fire inside a house for a glass of grappa; Hector, a partisan commander who becomes an unemployed mama's boy following the war; and Raul, an intellectual like Fenoglio, who joins the partisans out of ideological commitment, only to find scant room on the battlefield for ideology.

The Classic Tales Of Italian Wartime Resistance; Available in English for the first time on the 50th anniversary of it's publication; Two thousand Italian partisans took the city of Alba on October 10, 1944, and two hundred lost it to the fascists on November 2 of the same year. Among the bedraggled fighters in this historic 23 day siege was Beppe Fenoglio. He later made his debut as a writer with Twenty Three Days Of The City Of Alba, a collection of short stories based on his experiences as a soldier in the resistance movement. The book went on to become a fixture of Italian literature. Fenoglio's cast includes the drunken thief Blister, who opens fire inside a house for a glass of grappa; Hector, a partisan commander who becomes an unemployed mama's boy following the war; and Raul, an intellectual like Fenoglio, who joins the partisans out of ideological commitment, only to find scant room on the battlefield for ideology.

Anti-heroes in the classic sense, they all but bumbled their way into playing a crucial role in the Allied victory of World War II, then returned home to nurse the psychological and physical wounds that lingered long after the echoes of the victory parade had faded.

BEPPE (GIUSEPPE) FENOGLIO was born in Alba in 1922. He left the University of Turin in 1943 to train as an officer in the Italian army and later joined the partisan resistance movement. After the war he began his career as a novelist (Johnny the Partisan, Ruin, and A Private Matter) and translator of British and American literature, including works by D. H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, and Shakespeare. He died in 1962.