Stories from the city of God

"Stories from the City of God collects legendary Italiam filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini's short fiction and nonfiction from 1950 to 1966. In these pieces, we see the machinations of the creative mind in consideration of the character of Rome after World War II." "Pasolini presents here a portrait of the city that is at once poignant and intimate, as honest as if it were his journal. We find artistic witness to the customs, dialect, squalor, and beauty of the ancient imperial capital that has succumbed to modern warfare, marginalization, and mass culture." "The sketches portray the impoverished masses that Pasolini calls the sub-proletariat, those who live under third world conditions and for whom simple pleasures, such as a blue sweater in a storefront window, are completely out of reach. In the chronicles, the author faithfully renders life in the infinite stretches of public housing on the periphery of the city." "Pasolini's art develops throughout the works collected here, from his early lyricism to tragicomic outlines for screenplays, and finally the maturation of his Neo-realism in eight of his chronicles that depict his life in Roman shantytowns."--Jacket.