Pavese’s first book was published on January 14, 1936, the penultimate title issued by the small publishing house founded by Carocci as a spin-off of the literary magazine Solaria. Largely overlooked at the time of its release, the collection would later come to be recognized as the testimony of an authentic, solitary voice—ultimately consecrated by critics and readers alike as a twentieth-century classic.

This narrative, corporeal poetry evokes “a world of young people living joyfully and in wonder at real things, moving with morning lightness among others.” Its echoes—Homer, Dante, Whitman, Lee Masters—resonate through a distinctive and highly recognizable voice, built upon a persistent anapestic rhythm.

Forty-one poems, from I Mari del Sud to Paesaggio (with a few small cuts imposed by the censors), trace a path that begins “una sera sul fianco di un colle” (“one evening on the side of a hill”) and ends at dawn with a quiet certainty: “Val la pena tornare, magari diverso” (“It’s worth coming back, even if no longer the same.”).