Discussed in this essay:

The Novel of Ferrara, by Giorgio Bassani. Translated by Jamie McKendrick. W. W. Norton. 744 pages. $39.95.

The Holocaust must be mentioned, but it will not be talked about. It must be mentioned because it is the single most conditioning fact in Giorgio Bassani’s life and in the life of the Jewish community in Ferrara, the northern Italian town where he grew up: in 1943, 183 of Ferrara’s four hundred or so Jews were rounded up and deported to Germany, whence but one returned. It will not be directly talked about…