Tozzi's name won't be found heading many encyclopedia articles, but he was by all accounts a prolific and significant figure in pre-Modern Italian literature. Although he didn't survive into his forties, his relatively few years of authorial productivity resulted in five novels and over one hundred short stories, among other works of poetry and drama. Of these considerable efforts, only the twenty tales in this volume are readily available in English. They range in date of composition from 1910 until 1919, and the highlight of the collection is the opportunity to trace Tozzi's growing facility with the story form. The early stories are barely more than vignettes, but the later ones show an increasing degree of sophistication, employing varying narrative techniques and more involved plots to explore a consistent thematic preoccupation, the confused psychology of semi-rural characters. In Tozzi's world, emotions swirl implacably, and motives are barely more intelligible to the reader than they are to the protagonists. Typically, in "First Love," a character named Giacomo is "dizzy with youthful ecstasy" for Emilia but can't find words or even actions to express himself. Her kindly replies to his vaguely expressed worries are met only with thoughts: "You? I'm ashamed of you. I don't like you. I don't believe you." Here, as in every story, a character experiences conflicting impulses in a single moment. In this example, Tozzi yokes disparate emotions together with the abruptness of a clumsy lover, but with time, he learns to interlace them with an almost Chekhovian delicacy.

When I heard that this was coming out a couple of years ago, I was thrilled to hear that an edition of Tozzi's stories was finally being produced in English translation. And having just received it, I am not disappointed. Minna Proctor does a phenomenal job with her translations, making them both fluid and faithful to the atmosphere generated in the originals. As the title implies, the majority of the stories revolve around love, but, where Tozzi is concerned, that definition is quite broad, ranging from conjugal and hyper-romanticized to nebulous and bizarre (i.e. "Pigionali" ["Boardinghouse"], one of my favorites).

Like Kafka, Walser and Buchner, Tozzi's internal conflicts between his own identity, sense of self-worth, and how these fit (or not) into the greater whole of humanity immediately comes to the forefront of many stories in this collection. In my eyes, only Buchner's "Woyzeck" feels as anachronistic as Tozzi's best, most passionate stories, totally out of step with the literary style of their peers and having much more of an impact on the post-WW2 generation of Italian writers, people like Moravia, Brancati, Berto, etc.

I'm also very thankful for Proctor's extensive introduction to the book, which provides vital biographical information on a writer not often included in literary reference texts, even those dealing specifically with early 20th-century Italian fiction. As Proctor states, much of this undoubtedly has to do with the constant use of the "provincial" label to describe, or belittle, his body of work. Perhaps this will counteract that misconception. One can only hope that New Directions or another publisher produces English translations of his longer works, especially RICORDI DI UN IMPIEGATO ("Journal of a Clerk", out-of-print in english for fifty years and my personal favorite), TRE CROCI ("Three Crosses", out-of-print since its initial release in the mid 1920's), IL PODERE (never translated), and CON GLI OCCHI CHIUSI ("Eyes Shut" and "Ghisola", two different translations of his first book-length work that came out over ten years ago.) In the meantime, Proctor and New Directions has given us this beautiful compilation to enjoy.