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Christ Stopped at Eboli: The Story of a Year Paperback – July 21, 2020

by Carlo Levi (Author), Frances Frenaye (Translator), Mark Rotella (Introduction)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 582 ratings
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Part autobiography, part sociological study, part travel memoir―Christ Stopped at Eboli is a reissue of Carlo Levi's classic book on life in a small, desolate Italian town during the 1930s.

It was to Lucania, a desolate land in southern Italy, that Carlo Levi―a doctor, painter, philosopher, and man of letters―was confined as a political prisoner because of his opposition to Italy's Fascist government at the start of the Ethiopian war in 1935. While there, Levi reflected on the harsh landscape and its inhabitants, peasants who lived the same lives their ancestors had, constantly fearing black magic and the near presence of death.

In so doing, Levi offered a starkly beautiful and moving account of a place and a people living outside the boundaries of progress and time.

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  1. Print length
    288 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Picador
  4. Publication date
    July 21, 2020
  5. Dimensions
    5.4 x 0.75 x 8.2 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1250623081
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1250623089
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“[Levi is] a sensitive and gifted writer with a great sense of style.” ―Alfred Kazin

About the Author

Carlo Levi (1902-1975) was born in Turin, Italy. He was a writer, journalist, artist, and doctor, whose first documentary novel, Christ Stopped at Eboli (1945), became an international sensation and introduced the trend toward social realism in post-war Italian literature.

Mark Rotella is the author of Stolen Figs and Other Adventures in Calabria (NPP, 2003). A senior reviews editor at Publishers Weekly, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with his wife and their two children.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador (July 21, 2020)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250623081
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250623089
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.4 x 0.75 x 8.2 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 582 ratings

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  1. Carlo Levi

    Carlo Levi

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
582 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Ernest Ohlmeyer
5.0 out of 5 stars An objective and sympathetic account of a feudal society in 1930s Italy
Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2023
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What an interesting book! Set in the 1930s, it is a memoir of the time the author was exiled to a small, primitive town in southern Italy because of his opposition to Fascism. It could also be described as a sociological study of the people in the town and their rigid caste system - the impoverished and exploited peasants vs the manipulative and avaricious upper middle class gentry. The author explores this feudal-like system of exploitation is an objective and sympathetic way. He is definitely on the side of the under class, but not in a dogmatic or political way. Rather, he forms an attachment to the generosity and kindliness of the illiterate peasants, and as a doctor tries to help improve their lives as best he can given the intransigence of the rigid social structure. The author writes in a very engaging way about the social lives of peasant and gentry alike, and closely examines their individual behaviors and motivations. This was a very enjoyable read that I can highly recommend.
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M. Feldman
5.0 out of 5 stars A quiet eye
Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2014
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This is a perfect memoir. It recounts the year Levi spent as a political prisoner in 1935 in Gagliano, a hamlet in southern Italy so remote that it seems almost untouched by modern life. Levi, a painter, writer, physician, and sometime musician, is a quiet presence in this book. One learns something about him, but more about the people he steadily observes.

The villagers are impoverished, often sickened by malaria, sometimes riven by ancient hatreds. Insofar as the state exists, it is a source of absurdities, like the "goat tax" that claims the only valuable possession the peasants possess. More real to them is America, a place to which some of the villagers have been, only to have been drawn back into poverty. The people are poor, and often unlucky, and certainly superstitious, but they are also hardworking and kind. The only figure Levi mocks is the mayor, an agent of the Fascist state, who lords it over the others.

What makes this memoir so appealing is the way that Levi quietly takes the measure of his own life in a place in which he is deprived of everything he considered important. He is not always happy in Gagliano, but when the time comes for him to leave, he lingers for an extra ten days. He also tells us that he never returned. He doesn't say this, but it's clear that he didn't need to. When he left, he carried the village with him.

M. Feldman
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R. M. Peterson
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but slow going
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2008
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Levi, a doctor and painter and intellectual, spent a year in the mid-1930's in Gagliano, Lucania, a peasant town in southern Italy, exiled there by the Fascist government for unspecified political offenses. CHRIST STOPPED AT EBOLI is his sensitive and loving portrait of life in Gagliano. In many ways the peasants were still pagans ("everything participates in divinity"); Christianity as a religion had not yet penetrated that far south in Italy; in other words, "Christ stopped at Eboli" (a city somewhat north of Gagliano). Levi recounts in detail the lives and world-view of these Twentieth-Century European peasants, which is summarized in the following passage: "This suffering together, this fatalistic, comradely, age-old patience, is the deepest feeling the peasants have in common, a bond made by nature rather than by religion."

Interesting as it is, the book moves slowly -- probably much like the pace of life in Gagliano, but too slowly for me. Levi is not a particularly rigorous or logical thinker; his mentality is more that of a poet. Yet the writing, while not quite pedestrian, is at times ponderous and never really outstanding (perhaps that is in part the fault of the translation). Hence, after reading the book, I was mildly surprised by the mostly glowing reviews on Amazon, and I initially refrained from posting my own review, thinking that perhaps I was being overly critical. But I just finished reading VOICES OF THE OLD SEA by Norman Lewis, which is a portrait of peasant life in two remote villages in Spain in the late 1940s. Despite the different countries and a 15-year gap in time, there are many similarities between the communal lives portrayed by Lewis and by Levi. Yet Lewis's is a much superior book, in large part because the pace is quicker and the prose far better. By no means do I wish to discourage anyone from reading CHRIST STOPPED AT EBOLI, but if you enjoyed it, or think you might enjoy it, I do encourage you to read VOICES OF THE OLD SEA as well.
16 people found this helpful
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In The City
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating story! A classic.
Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2020
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Carlo Levi's anti-fascist beliefs caused Mussolini to send him (from 1935-1936) to a remote part of southern Italy (known today as Basilicata); he was warmly welcomed by the people of the region. Levi, a doctor from northern Italy, was unfamiliar with the poverty he would see in Basilicata. His book (published in 1945) tells us about his year in those extremely poor villages.

How poor were these villages? Levi tells us, "The title of the book comes from an expression by the people of 'Gagliano' who say of themselves, 'Christ stopped short of here, at Eboli' which means, in effect, that they feel they have been bypassed by Christianity, by morality, by history itself—that they have somehow been excluded from the full human experience."

Levi recalls the terrible desolation of the countryside and the abysmal backwardness of the people, but he also tells us about their warmth and courage... people who have been forgotten and abandoned by their government.
7 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Fern L Truax
5.0 out of 5 stars A year in exile for an Anti-Fascist in the Mussolini era
Reviewed in Canada on March 27, 2024
Verified Purchase
I bought this incredible book for a friend whose Italian ancestry he celebrates every day...but I suspect he probably hasn't read this illuminating, humanistic and vivid novel of a part of Italy "that Christ forgot". This southern part of Italy was largely ignored by northern Italians & particularly by Mussolini's fascist government....but I found this wonderful novel transcends history & politics. HIGHLY recommend.
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Vmp
5.0 out of 5 stars Lyrical, moving and evocative
Reviewed in the Netherlands on July 27, 2023
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This is a wonderful memoir and reminds me of Laurie Lee in Spain with Carlo Levi's compassion for the peasant population among whom he lived in exile. It is beautifully written, lyrical in style and very moving. I loved it.
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Pascale Lattouf
5.0 out of 5 stars Love it!
Reviewed in Italy on September 14, 2019
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Grateful there is an English version of Carlo Levi books!
One person found this helpful
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norbs
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in Germany on July 29, 2019
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Great book, interesting edition, delivery was prompt, the service professional
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Jannette - Sydney Australia
5.0 out of 5 stars The Incredably Hard Lives of the Peasants in Southern Italy in the 1930's
Reviewed in Australia on September 10, 2018
Verified Purchase
Carlo Levi was exiled to southern Italy in the 1930's. This book tells of the hardships endured daily by the "Forgotten Peoples" of the south of Italy during that time. The hand to mouth existence they lead and the struggle to get through each day. As the title says "Christ Stopped at Eboli" He didn't venture any further South to provide succour for these peoples.
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