Storia di Tönle
1978
First Published
3.85
Average Rating
113
Number of Pages
Tönle Bintarn's story takes place in the Veneto region, which once bordered the Austro-Hungarian Empire and where smuggling provided a means of subsistence to the peasants. Having run afoul of revenue agents, Tönle must seek refuge beyond the frontier in Central Europe, where year after year he survives by doing odd jobs and working as an itinerant print peddler, a horse trainer, and a gardener. When he is pardoned he returns home for good to find his children are grown and nothing remains for him but to tend his sheep, while around him Europe spins toward the catastrophe of the Great War—the conflict that will destroy Veneto's unique way of life.
Avg Rating
3.85
Number of Ratings
293
5 STARS
26%
4 STARS
41%
3 STARS
27%
2 STARS
5%
1 STARS
1%
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Author
Mario Rigoni Stern
Author · 18 books
Mario Rigoni Stern was an Italian author and World War II veteran. His first novel Il sergente nella neve, published in 1953 (and the following year in English as The Sergeant in the Snow), draws on his own experience as a Sergeant Major in the Alpini corp during the disastrous retreat from Russia in the World War II. It is his only work to be translated into English and Spanish. Other well-known works also include Le stagioni di Giacomo (Giacomo's Seasons), Storia di Tönle (The Story of Tönle), and the collection of short stories Sentieri sotto la neve (Paths Beneath the Snow). He was awarded the Premio Campiello and the Premio Bagutta for Storia di Tönle, and the Italian PEN prize for Sentieri sotto la neve.
