num_pages: 194
description: After serving time in mainland Italy for a minor theft, Elias Portolu returns home to Nuoro, in rural Sardinia. Lonely and vulnerable after his prison exile, he falls in love with his brother's fiancée. But he finds himself trapped by social and religious strictures, his passion and guilt winding into a spiral of anguish and paralyzing indecision. For guidance he turns first to the village priest, who advises him to resist temptation; then he turns to the pagan "father of the woods," who recognizes the weakness of human will and urges him to declare his love before it is too late.
language: English
title: Elias Portolu
titlecomplete: Elias Portolu
genres: Literature, Fiction, Italian Literature, 20th Century, Italy, Novels, Nobel Prize, Classics
ratings_count: 581
places: Sardinia
publisher: Northwestern University Press