Carlo Levi

Only a renaissance man could have described this glorious city in its heyday. And only Carlo Levi, writer, painter, politician and one of the last century's most celebrated talents, could depict Rome at the height of its optimism and vitality after World War II. In Fleeting Rome, the era of post war 'La Dolce Vita' is brought magnificently to life in the daily bustle of Rome's street traders, housewives and students at work and play, the colourful festivities of Ferragosto and San Giovanni, the little theatre of Pulcinella al Pincio; all vibrant sights and sounds of this ancient, yet vital city.

A selection of the essays and newspaper articles written by Carlo Levi in the early 1950's about the economic and social conditions in Sicily at that time -- conditions that extracted a heartbreaking price from the contadini and laborers, not limited to malnutrition, malaria and madness. A lucid presentation of how the old noble families -- with the help of the Mafia -- obstructed government attempts at land reform and used bribery, theft, bullying, and murder to keep their tenants in grinding poverty.

It was to Lucania, a desolate land in southern Italy, that Carlo Levi?a doctor, painter, philosopher, and man of letters?was confined as a political prisoner because of his opposition to Italy?s Fascist government at the start of the Ethiopian war in 1935. While there, Levi reflected on the harsh landscape and its inhabitants, peasants who lived the same lives their ancestors had, constantly fearing black magic and the near presence of death. In so doing, Levi offered a starkly beautiful and moving account of a place and a people living outside the boundaries of progress and time.