The Innocent Days of War -- Mario Fortunato, Paperback

In this gripping coming-of-age novel, a group of young people's lives and passions collide in unexpected ways as World War II transforms Italy and England.

Central Italy, on the eve of the Second World War. A group of young Italians find themselves in the midst of what will soon become a civil war. Among them is Stefano Portelli, a hopeful lawyer with a head full of utopias, in love with Eleonora. And there is his sister-in-law Nina, secretly linked to Sergio, a partisan leader.

Other lives run parallel to theirs: that of Alastair Ormiston, an English Royal Air Force Pilot, who adores Virginia Woolf's books and dreams of the ideal companion. And that of Edna, his best friend who, in a London bombed by the Nazis, discovers herself and her happiness. If their paths intersect in a shocking way, shuffling the cards of history, it will be through the work of a destiny greater than them, burning them in a bonfire where everything is consumed--joy and pain together.

Author: Mario Fortunato
Publisher: Other Press (NY)
Published: 10/28/2025
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.81lbs
ISBN: 9781635424140

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 09/01/2025

About the Author
Mario Fortunato was born in Cirò, Calabria, Italy. For three decades he worked as a literary critic for the Italian current affairs magazine L'Espresso. More recently he has worked as a columnist for the German daily paper Süddeutsche Zeitung. He has also served as director of the Italian Cultural Institute in London. In addition to writing novels such as South (Other Press, 2023), a New York Times Best Historical Fiction Book of the Year, he has translated into Italian works by Evelyn Waugh, Virginia Woolf, and Henry James.

Julia MacGibbon has translated works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including Marta Barone's Sunken City. She lives near Rome.