The latest addition to my website is Sebastiano Vassalli‘s Sebastiano Vassalli: Le due chiese [The Two Churches]. This is set in a fictitious part of Italy but what seems to be the Valle d’Aosta. Most of the action takes place between World War I to a period soon after World War II and focusses on the inhabitants of the village of Rocca di Sasso, with no individual hero. Vassalli describes many of the inhabitants, with their aspirations, foibles and faults. Two of the main characters are Ansimino (his nickname – everybody in the village has to have a nickname, either one they acquired or one they inherit from a parent) and Luigi Prandini, later known as Black Hand, when he loses a hand in World War I and wears a black glove to conceal it. Ansimino is the smith and the bus driver, an important post as he brings up the news and gossip from elsewhere in the valley. Luigi is the schoolmaster. Initially, he is a socialist and atheist but later gives us his socialist ideals and, as World War I approaches, he favours war. He will later become a Fascist when he becomes disillusioned after the end of World War I. When World War I comes, thirteen men are called up and they hold a symbolic last supper. A small church is built for them and then another one to celebrate their return, hence the title of the book. Some of the men are killed, some wounded and one is taken prisoner and it seems likely that he will never return. Spanish flu, development and the rise of Fascism are the key events after World War I, with the book ending after accounts have been settled after the war and the churches have been knocked down to build a car park. It is an enjoyable book, even if not, perhaps, as enjoyable as some of his other ones which focus on one or two people. It has not been translated into any other language.