THE WATCH

by Carlo Levi ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 22, 1951

The well-known Italian modern painter, political journalist, and the author of which had a distinguished press as well as a popular reception, Levi returns to post war Home only to find another Lucania, another land forgotten and abandoned to its misery. This is the story of three days and three nights spent in 1945 is newly liberated Rome when the author who had come there to edit a liberal newspaper, broke a valued old watch, set out to find a competent repair man. And in the course of his search, he observed a heartbreaking cross-section of the ""ancient cauldron of civilization"" that had slept so many years under fascism. There is the woman of fine family forced to conduct a sidewalk blackmarket in American cigarettes; the woman in the infested at whose breast a snake had fed while she slept; the drunk who died on the steps outside Levi's door where his unapproachable dog kept vigil. And on a trip to Naples, there are the old time brigands come alive, the quasi-pagan celebrations for saints, the visit to a dying favorite uncle. A perceptive observer, a polished stylist, Levi documents the darkening lives of post-war Italy in a narrative which has something of the quality of

Pub Date: June 22, 1951

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Young

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1951

Categories: NONFICTION