Sacha Naspini (Nives) brings close and poignant attention to true events with his historical novel The Bishop's Villa, translated from the Italian by Clarissa Botsford.
In the fall of 1943, in the sleepy village of Le Case in Tuscany's Maremma region, the war is poverty, deprivation, and the passage of time. When the local bishop rents out the seminary and surrounding villa to be used as a prison camp for the region's Jewish population, Le Case mostly plods on as before. Solitary and quiet by nature, René the cobbler mends the shoes brought to him for repair by prison guards.
But René's neighbor Anna, a lifelong friend, has just lost her son, who fought for the Resistance until he was executed by the Wehrmacht. Anna is galvanized; René wants her to stand down. And then Anna vanishes, leaving behind a note for René. She has gone to join the partisans, to "fight for Edoardo and for Italy." When René learns that Anna might have become imprisoned in the bishop's villa, he finds that he can no longer fail to act. His subtle sabotage begins with boots: "He chose rusty nails, some so brittle that they crumbled at the first blow."
Botsford's translation is terse and atmospheric, punctuated by lyrical or romantic phrasings. The Bishop's Villa is absorbing, transporting, beautiful, and grim. Naspini's author's note makes clear his drive to lay bare a shameful chapter of history; but with this novel he has also written a love story, for without Anna, "René would never have used the tools of his trade to fight his war." The result is moving and layered. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia