Family Chronicle     by Vasco Pratolini Original title: Cronaca Familiare Original language: Italian Published by Italica Press Pub. Date: 1995 Format: Paperback, 136 pages ISBN: 0934977070 List Price: $12.50, £6.04 Buy online from Amazon.co.uk for £6.04 Buy online from Amazon.com for $12.50 Published by Quartet Pub. Date: 1991 Pub. Place: UK Format: Paperback, 121 pages List Price: £5.95 Not available for ordering

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This intensely lyrical work emerged from a real and painful experience and Pratolini avoids all invention, staying close to the actual story of his relationship with his younger brother Ferruccio, who died young through illness. Their family’s economic situation forced the brothers to grow up separately — the author in the harsh streets of a city quartiere, Ferrucio within the walls of a well-off household — and when they eventually met again they found each other very changed. Pratolini was puzzled by the solitary and timid existence of his brother, which contrasted with his own vital, open and companionable life. But their blood relationship kindled a desire in both to get to know each other again in spite of all the obstacles, misunderstandings and embarrassments that separation had thrown their way. One such obstacle was Ferruccio’s illness; his youth was accelerated and then extinguished by an incurable disease. In the face of this the author tries to take stock of the whole mysterious human quality of his brother.


First published in 1947, this is a kind of intimate report in which the writer appears vulnerable and intent only on articulating, by using his gift for writing, an appreciation of another person, something that was denied him while that person was alive.

‘This book is not a work of the imagination. It is the writer’s dialogue with his dead brother. The writer in writing it is seeking consolation and nothing else. He suffers from the guilty knowledge of having barely appreciated the spiritual qualities of his brother and then too late. These pages can be only a sterile expiation.’ (from the author’s preface)