Einaudi, 1973.

(Return to the Don)

For his 25th wedding anniversary Mario, retired the year before (1970), invested part of the settlement in a tricky trip to Russia with his wife Anna, on the traces of the past. He was able to find again its strongpoint on the Don and the other places of the war, the first Italian soldier to go back there after almost thirty years. He told about his journey and intense emotions in a series of much appreciated articles on the journal “Il Giorno;” these writings then became the basis of his new book. A “mosaic book,” which contains seven short stories focused on episodes of the war and the difficult return home, “a baita.” The short stories mixed present and recollections, condensed in a wounded memory in which there is a very lively regret for the many friends remained there, under the snow. Paradoxically, those places between Donets and Don, where the writer had encountered “a great peace, a great silence, an infinite sweetness” are, now, theatre of war again.