The Little World of Don Camillo

The Little World of Don Camillo - Written and Illustrated by Giovanni Guareschi Translated from the Italian by Una Vincenzo Troubridge Publisher: Pocket Books, 14th printing December 1967 Paperback 4.15 x 6.35 inches, 153 pages Don Camillo and Peppone are the fictional protagonists of a series of works by the Italian writer and journalist Giovannino Guareschi set in what Guareschi refers to as the "small world" of rural Italy after World War II. Most of the Don Camillo stories came out in the weekly magazine Candido, founded by Guareschi with Giovanni Mosca. These "Little World" (Italian: Piccolo Mondo) stories amounted to 347 in total and were put together and published in eight books, only the first three of which were published when Guareschi was still alive. Don Camillo is a parish priest and is said to have been inspired by an actual Roman Catholic priest, World War II partisan and detainee at the concentration camps of Dachau and Mauthausen, named Don Camillo Valota (1912–1998). Guareschi was also inspired by Don Alessandro Parenti, a priest of Trepalle, near the Swiss border. Peppone is the communist town mayor. The tensions between the two characters and their respective factions form the basis of the works' satirical plots. ------------------- After receiving a tractor as a gift from the collective farm (kolkhoz) of a Soviet village on the Don River, Communist mayor Peppone plans to twin Brescello with the unnamed village. After some failed attempts to block the mayor's plan, the anti-Communist Don Camillo ultimately tricks Peppone into including him (under a false name and with forged papers) among the Italian Communist representatives passing through the Iron Curtain to attend the twinning ceremonies. Only Peppone and the other comrades from Brescello know the priest's real identity. During the Russian stay, they face a series of situations that will show them both the political contradictions of Soviet Russia and the normal life of its common people.