Novel
La quinta stagione
Not translated into English
Fulvio Tomizza · 1965
Synopsis
Stefano, a boy from Giurizzani, a village in Istria, has for a father an Italian shopkeeper won over to fascism and for a mother a Slav. With the other children, he plays at war, which he knows only through what adults say and the regime's proclamations. After 8 September 1943, routed Italian soldiers pass through the village and abandon their weapons, which become toys; then the Germans arrive and round up the able-bodied men, while some young people join the Yugoslav partisans.
Context
The novel appeared from Mondadori in 1965. According to Helena Janeczek, cited by the publisher Marsilio, it is at once a classic novel of formation and its negation: the child matures, but war, which is usually held to be an ordeal that forms youth, forms nothing in it. The book was translated into Croatian in 1990 and into German in 1997, and Marsilio reissued it in 2012 in its Biblioteca Novecento series.
Who it is for
A short novel, told at the height of a child who sees the war coming long before understanding it.
Prizes and reception
It was shortlisted for the Campiello Prize in 1965, the year of its publication.