The novel of Ferrara

Set in the northern Italian town of Ferrara before, during and after World War II, 'The Novel of Ferrara' includes 'Within the Walls', 'The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles', 'The Garden of the Finzi-Continis', 'Behind the Door', 'The Heron' and 'The Smell of Hay'.

These interlocking stories present a fully rounded world of unforgettable characters: the respected doctor whose homosexuality is tolerated until he is humiliatingly exposed by a scandal; a survivor of the Nazi death camps whose neighbours' celebration of his return gradually turns to ostracism; a man who has never recovered from the wounds inflicted in youth by a treacherous friend.

Above all, the city itself assumes a character and a voice, deeply inflected by the Jewish community to which the narrator belongs.