The Fifth Estate

by Ferdinando Camon, John Shepley (Translator)

Overview

The first of his three classic autobiographical novels, The Fifth Estate chronicles the passing in our own time of an ageless civilization, that of the peasant world Camon was born into. The trilogy—which also includes Life Everlasting and Memorial—has appeared in translation worldwide since its publication in the 1970s.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780910395298
Publisher:	Northwestern University Press
Publication date:	01/01/1987
Edition description:	1
Pages:	163
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Ferdinando Camon (born in Montagnana 1935) is a contemporary Italian writer. He is married to a journalist and has two sons: Alessandro Camon, a film producer/writer who lives in Los Angeles, and Alberto, who teaches criminal procedure and lives in Bologna. He has contributed to a number of Italian and foreign daily newspapers, including La Stampa, l'Unità, Avvenire, Le Monde, and La Nación.

 

Table of Contents

Preface to the American Edition

Part One

1. The human or almost human figure
2. The Devil's foot 
     Enclosures. On sanctity
3. The race of Attila
4. The double history of the Dog Man
5. Perfect likenesses

Part Two
1. Failed magic
2. In search of the thermometer

Part Three
1. A foreign language
2. Intuition of the city
3. The marvelous vision

Author's note

Editorial Reviews

Along with his Memorial (Marlboro, 1983), winner of a Pushcart Small Press Prize, these two novels comprise the author's ``Il ciclo degli ultimi,'' his paean to the peasantsthe lowliest, the least, the lastof rural Italy. Camon considers The Fifth Estate his first novel, issued in Italy in 1970 with a preface by Pier Paolo Pasolinito be his ``geography'' of the pre-World War II peasant people. It tells the ``story of an archaic community and `the way it works' through a myraid of figurespersons, angels, devils, animalsand a mist of legends.'' Life Everlasing , the ``history'' of the peasant people, ``isolates, within this galaxy, the bright star of the Peasant Resistance: a barbaric and visceral struggle with neither ideology nor program.'' Both novels are told in long, lyrical sentences, beautifully translated, that unwind with the vivid detail of stream-of-consciousness recall. Highly recommended for fiction collections. Marcia G. Fuchs, Guilford Free Lib., Ct.

Library Journal

"[A] wonderfully vibrant memoir. The narrator's voice is exultant with the pleasures of recalling the old days and ways that exist now only in memory. This 'cycle' is his eulogy and lament."
—Publishers Weekly



a "paean to the peasants—the lowliest, the least, the last—of rural Italy . . . told in long, lyrical sentences, beautifully translated, that unwind with the vivid details of stream-of-consciousness recall."

—Library Journal

From the Publisher