Christ Stopped at Eboli
The Story of a Year
Picador · Print & ebook · July 21, 2020
Part autobiography, part sociological study, part travel memoir—Christ Stopped at Eboli is a reissue of Carlo Levi's classic book on life in a small, desolate Italian town during the 1930s.
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- Who it’s for
- A layered account of southern Italian life, where landscape, politics, and inherited fears meet.
- Themes
- Political exile, Rural life and social isolation, Tradition and superstition
- Pacing
- Reflective
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Start with this bookAbout this book
Part autobiography, part sociological study, part travel memoir—Christ Stopped at Eboli is a reissue of Carlo Levi's classic book on life in a small, desolate Italian town during the 1930s. It was to Lucania, a desolate land in southern Italy, that Carlo Levi—a doctor, painter, philosopher, and man of letters—was confined as a political prisoner because of his opposition to Italy's Fascist government at the start of the Ethiopian war in 1935.
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While there, Levi reflected on the harsh landscape and its inhabitants, peasants who lived the same lives their ancestors had, constantly fearing black magic and the near presence of death. In so doing, Levi offered a starkly beautiful and moving account of a place and a people living outside the boundaries of progress and time.
A Place Observed
A layered account of southern Italian life, where landscape, politics, and inherited fears meet.
Come here for
- A close look at a place and its people beyond the boundaries of progress
- The unusual blend of autobiography, social observation, and travel memoir
Expect
- A stark, moving portrait of life in 1930s Lucania
- Reflections shaped by a harsh landscape and political confinement
Where it sits
| Italy Travel | 47% |
|---|---|
| Italian History | 36% |
| Writers' Lives | 33% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Writers' Lives
- Italy Travel
- Authors
- Carlo Levi
- Publisher
- Picador
- Published
- July 21, 2020
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Political exile · Rural life and social isolation · Tradition and superstition
- Reading lane
- Writers' Lives