Born in Sicily, Italy, Giovanni Verga was one of the creators of Verismo. Verismo is an Italian literary movement that emerged between 1875 and 1895, based on the works of writers and poets who constituted a school based on a set of realistic principles. Through this seven specially selected short stories you will have the opportunity to know the work of this author. - Rosso Malpello - Rustic Chivalry - How Peppa Loved Gramigna - Jeli, the Shepherd - La Lupa - The Story of St. Joseph's Ass - The Bereaved

First Published in a single volume in 1883, the stories collected in Little Novels of Sicily are drawn from the Sicily of Giovanni Verga's childhood, reported at the time to be the poorest place in Europe. Verga's style is swift, sure, and implacable; he plunges into his stories almost in midbreath, and tells them with a stark economy of words. There's something dark and tightly coiled at the heart of each story, an ironic, bitter resolution that is belied by the deceptive simplicity of Verga's prose, and Verga strikes just when the reader's not expecting it. Translator D. H. Lawrence surely found echoes of his own upbringing in Verga's sketches of Sicilian life: the class struggle between property owners and tenants, the relationship between men and the land, and the unsentimental, sometimes startlingly lyric evocation of the landscape. Just as Lawrence veers between loving and despising the industrial North and its people, so too Verga shifts between affection for and ironic detachment from the superstitious, uneducated, downtrodden working poor of Sicily. If Verga reserves pity for anyone or anything, it is the children and the animals, but he doesn't spare them. In his experience, it is the innocents who suffer first and last and always.

In this book, we present a compilation of short stories by the Italian writer Giovanni Verga, one of the greatest exponents of the literary movement of verismo, which emerged in Italy at the end of the 19th century and was characterized by the precise and objective description of social, political, and cultural reality. Verga's stories portray life and culture in southern Italy, particularly in Sicily, where he was born and raised. His works are deeply rooted in local culture and traditions, and explore themes such as poverty, injustice, love, and the struggle for life. This collection includes some of Verga's most famous and acclaimed short stories, such as Rosso Malpelo, The She-Wolf (La lupa), Nedda, Pentolaccia, Rustic Chivalry (Cavalleria rusticana), The Robbery (La roba), War of Saints (Guerra di Santi), Liberty (Libertà), The Story of Saint Joseph's Donkey (Storia dell'asino di S. Giuseppe), Malaria, Jeli the Shepherd (Jeli il pastore), and The Lover of Gramigna (L'amante di Gramigna) and Another Flood (Un'altra inondazione). Each of these stories offers a penetrating insight into the life and emotions of ordinary people, showing the richness and complexity of the human experience. With his precise and realistic prose, he offers a vivid and moving portrait of life in southern Italy at the end of the 19th century, and his work continues to be a lasting influence on Italian and world literature.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1973.