Fontamara

Fontamara ( Original title: fontamara ) is a novel by the Italian writer Ignazio Silone.

Fontamara is the name of a fictional village in the Abruzzo region and place of the action. The book was written in 1930 in the Swiss exile and was released in 1933 as a translation in Switzerland. 1961 Silone revised the text. The German translation of this edition was published in 1962 by Kiepenheuer & Malevich.

Action

Three villagers - father, mother and son - report to the exiled writer for a night on the events in the village fontamara who decides then to write down these stories. Fontamara is located in the periphery, secluded in the mountains. The villagers live there still a frugal life. Few achievements of modern life penetrate into the mountains; the Gemeindebote is always chased away by force.

The meager income is just enough to live, many residents seek safety in exile. The advent of fascism changed the lives of cafoni how the uneducated mountain farmers are called. First, the labor migration is limited, then decides a wealthy factory owner who has attained a fascist to office and dignity, to divert the course of a stream, which is used to irrigate the fields in his favor. The cafoni are left with nothing. The lawyer, who - but otherwise always concerned mainly due to its advantage - began for them, is an accomplice of the factory owner. Fascist organizations eventually terrorize the village, rape and humiliate the villagers. Therefore, the strongest and most determined decides villagers to go along with the son of the report ends, to Rome. He will contact the anti-fascist resistance, but is soon imprisoned with his contact and his traveling companion and tortured to death. The son finally returns to fontamara and founded with the inhabitants of a resistance newspaper.

Filming

The book was made ​​into a film by Carlo Lizzani 1977.