A Private Affair

A powerful World War II novel about a young soldier joining the anti-German resistance in occupied Italy, this classic--which touches on everything from wartime dangers and adventures to desperate love--is regarded as one of the greatest works of twentieth-century Italian literature.

Milton--the name is a nom de guerre--is a member of a partisan band battling Italian Fascists and German forces in the chaotic last years of World War II. Before the war Milton was a student of English literature and a lover of poetry. He was in love with a girl, too, Fulvia, and from time to time she’d invite him over to her rich family’s fine house and have him read to her. Now, in the thick of war, he discovers that handsome Giorgio, his friend and fellow partisan, was sleeping with Fulvia at the time. Furious with jealousy, Milton hastens to have it out with Giorgio, but Giorgio has been captured by the Germans. A Private Affair tells the story of Milton’s mad quest--through mud and fog, rain and terror, while barely evading enemy patrols--to rescue his friend, the better to settle a grudge from a lost world of peace. Beppe Fenoglio’s masterpiece is a peerless story of the violent heart and world.

Beppe Fenoglio (1922-1963) was an Italian writer, translator, and soldier. He briefly studied at the University of Turin before being drafted into the Italian Army in 1943. During the Nazi occupation of Italy, Fenoglio fought in the resistance. After the war, he worked as a wine merchant and wrote novels and stories that capture rural life in Northern Italy and his war experiences fighting against fascist groups. He is best known for his 1952 cycle of stories, The Twenty-Three Days of the City of Alba, and for the novel Johnny The Partisan. He died of cancer at the age of forty.

Howard Curtis is an award-winning British translator of French, Italian, and Spanish fiction.