Naples '44

Norman Lewis

Editions

Review

One of the century's greatest writers, according to Graham Greene, Norman Lewis's work deserves to be better known.  Naples '44 is a diary of his adventures as a British Intelligence Officer in the Italian South in 1944, when Naples was a vast black market for the advancing Americans and the Mafia made themselves indispensable to them in their dealings with the destitute populace.  Despite the suffering and cruelty he exposes so clearly (as in many of his other books), Lewis also conveys a spirited admiration of the Italians. - review by Johnny de Falbe