Roman Tales
Roman Tales
Author: Alberto Moravia
Desc: Racconti romani (Roman Tales) is a series of short stories written and published initially in the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera. They were first published as a collection in 1954. All of the stories are set in Rome or its surroundings after World War II and focus on 'the common people of Rome' (Roma popolana). The characters in these stories tend to be the unemployed ex-convicts waiters drivers con artists thieves and petty criminals the average man (or woman) and the lower classes aspiring to climb out of poverty. All the stories are told in the first person with the narrator often unnamed although details are usually furnished to provide a clue to the narrator's identity such as their occupation motivations and social status. Moravia's Racconti Romani provide a snapshot on life in Rome after World War II revealing much about the inhabitants of Rome in the early 1950s.