Reeds in the Wind

Grazia Deledda · 1871–1936 · Italy

Originally Canne al vento (Italian) · translated by Martha King

Why it matters

The servant Efix works off a secret guilt by serving the three ruined Pintor sisters, until their runaway nephew returns to unsettle everything. Deledda's masterpiece: Sardinian fatalism made literature, humans bending like reeds under fate's wind.

At a glance

Straightforward narration in a dense weave of Sardinian custom, superstition, and landscape.