La casa en la colina

June 1943: Allied planes fly over Turin; Fascist Italy is on its knees. Every afternoon, at the end of the day, Corrado leaves the dark, bombed-out city to return to the safety of the hills. Soon, however, he begins to frequent a nearby inn where a circle of anti-fascists meets and where, in addition, he meets Cate again, with whom he had a relationship years ago and who lives there with her son, Dino. Corrado, a solitary and taciturn man, will soon be faced with the crucial choice between emotional and political commitment -with all its dangers- and devastating retreat. The House on the Hill is considered by critics to be the peak of Cesare Pavese's narrative maturity. Originally published in 1948, and filled with subtle autobiographical reminiscences, the novel symbolizes the existential malaise of an entire generation through a lucid story that dissects human guilt and weakness, with the seductive intensity of the Piedmontese countryside as a backdrop; a road strewn with gunshots, death, blood mixed with the gasoline that escapes from the trucks. Innocence is lost forever and consolation is not found even in the land of origin, because nothing is the same as before.