"The first novel in the series, Fontamara, portrays the bitter trials of the villagers of Pescina as they battle with landowners who have appropriated their only source of water. First published from his exile in Zurich in 1933, and banned in his own country, the novel was translated into twenty languages and won Silone instant international literary fame.".

"Silone's masterpiece, Bread and Wine, introduces the semiautobiographical character Pietro Spina, an anti-Fascist revolutionary who returns to his homeland after fifteen years in exile. He seeks refuge among the Abruzzo peasants by posing as the priest Don Paolo Spada.".

"Pietro's story continues in The Seed Beneath the Snow, Silone's personal favorite in the trilogy. Pietro flees again and, with the police in close pursuit, is taken in by his grandmother, Donna Maria Vincenza. Though comfortably settled in Italian bourgeois society, she jeopardizes her own life in order to protect him."--BOOK JACKET.