Short stories
The Faithful Lover
L'amante fedele
Massimo Bontempelli · 1953
Synopsis
Fourteen short stories and one longer tale, in which the strange intrudes into ordinary lives. A young man follows a procession of pilgrims by night through the city to a forest; under the enchantment of the moon, a thief saves the life of a police officer; a motorist discovers a young girl on his back seat. In the story that gives the book its title, a man separated for sixty days from the woman he loves carries his fidelity to the point of obsession.
Context
The collection appeared with Mondadori, in Milan, in 1953, and received the Strega Prize the same year. The stories date from the 1940s to 1946. They belong to magic realism, a manner the author had theorised in the twenties and of which he is regarded as the Italian representative. The first half of the book keeps this taste for the unusual, the second returns to a more classical realism. Estelle Gilson translated it into English in 2007 under the title “The Faithful Lover”, without two of the stories.
Who it is for
A collection of short stories, which can be read separately, without seeking an explanation for what happens.
Prizes and reception
According to Mangialibri, the Strega Prize here crowned a collection of short stories, a genre that critics usually regarded as minor.
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