Fontamara , the first novel in Ignazio Silone’s celebrated Abruzzo Trilogy , portrays the impoverished and embattled peasants ( cafoni ) of Abruzzo in their spirited yet doomed opposition to the ruthless expansion of fascism. Springing from the very soil of Silone’s own experiences, Fontamara soars to the heights of fable, with a seemingly mundane dispute over land and water rights inciting a rebellion against the injustice and oppression of the fascist social system and a sacrificial quest for the salvation of a community. Written when Silone was in exile and first published in 1933, then in English in 1934, Fontamara is a visceral depiction of upheaval and desolation during the reign of Mussolini. Potent in its simplicity and unforgettable for its tragedy, it is an account of totalitarianism which, in the words of Graham Greene, “should be read to its merciless end.”