South – Mario Fortunato

In this memoir-like novel with overtones of War and Peace and Proust the author has laid out the history of 20^th century Italy in the southern region of Calabria. With two huge family trees, burdened with nearly 50 characters, the major events of the country and its impacts are recounted. The heads of the two families are the Notary and the Pharmacist—both pillars of the closed, nearly medieval, society in a small backwater village. It begins with the Fascist domination of the town, the effects of WWII and the liberation, followed by all the political upheaval of the 60s along with mass migration of the populace to seek better economic opportunities. The youngest of the family who has escaped to the North finally “came to see that if we lose our connection with the past, we lose ourselves; because the past is vaster than the present.”