Martha King

This is a timely and extensive biography of a writer who, in the early twentieth century, achieved such status in the literary world that publishers in Italy vied for her novels, and editors felt honoured to publish her short stories and 'sketches'. Now, almost seventy years after her death, her novels continue to be reprinted and translated, and critical appreciation of her work continues to grow. Her works still live and have the power to move her readers.

Winner of the 1926 Novel Prize for LiteratureAfter serving time in mainland Italy for a minor theft, Elias Portolu returns home to Nuoro, in rural Sardinia. Lonely and vulnerable after his prison exile, he falls in love with his brother's fiancee. But he finds himself trapped by social and religious strictures, his passion and guilt winding into a spiral of anguish and paralyzing indecision. For guidance he turns first to the village priest, who advises him to resist temptation; then he turns to the pagan father of the woods, who recognizes the weakness of human will and urges him to declare his love before it is too late.