A historical novel that follows several generations of a family from Monferrato across a long span of time, from the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars to Italian unification. Rooted daily life and the pressure of history accumulate through love, betrayal, and loss.

At the end of the dusty road, family memory and the outline of modern Italy come into view.

A poetry collection written in the Romagnol dialect, it brings forward the voices of people marked by unfamiliar places and a sense of not belonging. The loneliness and comic strain hidden in everyday speech are sharpened by the cadence of the dialect.

The monologues of outsiders sound vividly alive in the inflections of dialect.

This volume gathers criticism and essays written between 1968 and 1987, ranging across literary language, style, editorial practice, and reflections on Manzoni and Gadda. Through Contini's late work, criticism appears not only as interpretation of texts but as a reading of language itself.

To read literature is also to read language in motion.