A new doctor arrives into the insular town of 1930s Ferrara. Fadigati is hopeful and modern, and more than anything wants to fit into his new home. But his fresh, appealing appearance soon crumbles when the townsfolk discover his homosexuality, and the young man he pays to be his lover humiliates him publicly.

Giorgio Bassani’s six classic books, collected for the first time in English as the epic masterwork they were intended to be. Among the masters of twentieth-century literature, Giorgio Bassani and his northern Italian hometown of Ferrara “are as inseparable as James Joyce and Dublin or Italo Svevo and Trieste” (from the Introduction). The Novel of Ferrara brings together Bassani’s six classics, fully revised by the author at the end of his life. Set before, during, and after the Second World War, these interlocking stories present nuanced and unforgettable characters: the respected doctor whose homosexuality is exposed by an exploitative youth; the survivor of the Nazi death camps; the Jewish landowner, returned from exile, to find himself utterly displaced; the schoolteacher whose Communist idealism challenges a postwar generation. Suffused with new life by acclaimed translator and poet Jamie McKendrick, The Novel of Ferrara memorializes a city deeply informed by the Jewish community to which the narrator belongs. This seminal work seals Bassani’s indomitable reputation.

This history of Italy's Jews under the shadow of the Holocaust examines the lives of five Jewish families: the Ovazzas, who propered under Mussolini and whose patriarch became a prominent fascist; the Foas, whose children included both an antifascist activist and a Fascist Party member, the DiVerolis who struggled for survival in the ghetto; the Teglios, one of whom worked with the Catholic Church to save hundreds of Jews; and the Schonheits, who were sent to Buchenwald and Ravensbruck.

Recognized as a master of Italian cinema, Vittorio De Sica is perhaps best known and most respected for his critically acclaimed neorealist films of the period 1946-55. As this anthology reveals, however, his production was remarkably multifaceted. The essays included here - some newly commissioned, some reprinted, and others in translation - look at De Sica's varied career from many perspecives. Structured chronologically, the volume begins by introducing readers to De Sica's early popularity as an actor and singer during the years of Italian Fascism, and to his initial directorial efforts before the end of World War II. It was not until the postwar era, however, that De Sica made his mark in film history. Special attention is given to this critical phase of his career, which encompasses the neorealist films that made him famous: "Shoeshine", "Bicycle Thieves", "Miracle in Milan", and "Umberto D." When the neorealist movement waned after 1955, De Sica returned to his roots in Neapolitan comedy for a series of commercially successful films starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. Memorable works from this period include "Two Women" and "Marriage Italian Style" as well as "Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow", which won De Sica an Academy Award in 1965. In one of his final films, "The Garden of the Finzi Continis", he returned to the subject of World War II and to the human tragedy characteristic of his best neorealist productions. This fine anthology offers a comprehensive critical survey that covers the entire scope of De Sica's career, and is an excellent resource for students, critics and film enthusiasts.

An accessible introduction to the classics of Jewish literature, from the Bible to modern times, by "one of America’s finest literary critics" (Wall Street Journal). Jews have long embraced their identity as “the people of the book.” But outside of the Bible, much of the Jewish literary tradition remains little known to nonspecialist readers. The People and the Books shows how central questions and themes of our history and culture are reflected in the Jewish literary canon: the nature of God, the right way to understand the Bible, the relationship of the Jews to their Promised Land, and the challenges of living as a minority in Diaspora. Adam Kirsch explores eighteen classic texts, including the biblical books of Deuteronomy and Esther, the philosophy of Maimonides, the autobiography of the medieval businesswoman Glückel of Hameln, and the Zionist manifestoes of Theodor Herzl. From the Jews of Roman Egypt to the mystical devotees of Hasidism in Eastern Europe, The People and the Books brings the treasures of Jewish literature to life and offers new ways to think about their enduring power and influence.

Death and Garden Narratives in Literature, Art and Film: Song of Death in Paradise explores the combination of two motifs, death and gardens, to show how the two subjects are intertwined and used in various media and cultural contexts. Using cultural, literary, film, and art history theories, the contributors analyze various death and garden sceneries in literary works by Arthur Machen, Agatha Christie, J.K. Rowling, as well as in superhero comics, films, and cultural and art contexts such as Ian Hamilton Finley's “Little Sparta,” the poetic verses from the Karoo Desert National Botanical Garden in South Africa, and the Australian wilderness.