{"product_id":"naples-44-a-world-war-ii-diary-of-occupied-italy","title":"Naples '44 by Norman Lewis","description":"\u003ch1\u003eNaples '44: A World War II Diary of Occupied Italy by Norman Lewis\u003c\/h1\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eRe-released eighty years after liberation with a new foreword from Alex Kershaw, New York Times bestselling author of \u003cem\u003eThe Longest Winter\u003c\/em\u003e and Resident Historian of the WWII Memorial.\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the author Graham Greene called \"one of our best writers, not of any particular decade but of our century,\" comes \u003cstrong\u003ea masterpiece about a war-ravaged city\u003c\/strong\u003e under occupation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs a young intelligence officer stationed in Naples following its liberation from Nazi forces, Norman Lewis recorded the lives of a proud and vibrant people forced to survive on prostitution, thievery, and a desperate belief in miracles and cures. The most popular of Lewis's twenty-seven books, \u003cem\u003eNaples '44 \u003c\/em\u003eis a landmark poetic study of the agony of wartime occupation and its ability to bring out the worst, and often the best, in human nature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn prose both heartrending and comic, Lewis describes \u003cstrong\u003ean era of disillusionment, escapism, and hysteria\u003c\/strong\u003e in which the Allied occupiers mete out justice unfairly and fail to provide basic necessities to the populace while Neapolitan citizens accuse each other of being Nazi spies, women offer their bodies to the same Allied soldiers whose supplies they steal for sale on the black market, and angry young men organize militias to oppose \"temporary\" foreign rule.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYet over the chaotic din, Lewis sings intimately of the essential dignity of the Neapolitan people, whose traditions of civility, courage, and generosity of spirit shine through daily. This essential \u003cstrong\u003eWorld War II book\u003c\/strong\u003e is as timely a read as ever.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Norman Lewis is one of the greatest twentieth-century British writers and Naples '44 is his masterpiece. A lyrical, ironic, and detached account of a tempestuous, byzantine, and opaque city in the aftermath of war.\"\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—Will Self\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/blockquote\u003e","brand":"Bust-Down Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50303325897019,"sku":"0306835258","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0855\/2077\/7531\/files\/6092913482297.jpg?v=1747483407","url":"https:\/\/bustdownbooks.com\/products\/naples-44-a-world-war-ii-diary-of-occupied-italy","provider":"Bust-Down Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}