Summary of The Day of Judgment
In “The Day of Judgment”, an elderly man returns to Nuoro, the town of his youth in central Sardinia, where, in his imagination, he summons up the dead from the town cemetery. The book is a collection of memories of his youth, ranging from family life to events in the town, from the late nineteenth century to the years following the First World War. It includes vivid descriptions of everyday life — from how bread and wine are made to the arrival of modernity, such as the introduction of electricity. The narrative is loosely centred on the figure of Don Sebastiano, a local lawyer and prominent citizen of Nuoro: a husband who does not love his wife and a father to seven sons whom he barely notices.
Reasons to read The Day of Judgment
“The Day of Judgment” offers an engaging, nostalgic and humorous portrait of life in Sardinia a hundred years ago. It is less a plot-driven novel than a series of interconnected episodes — each chapter recounting different events or focusing on different characters. Salvatore Satta was a distinguished Italian jurist, born and raised in Nuoro. The manuscript was discovered by his family after his death and went on to become an unexpected classic of twentieth-century Italian literature.
Original title: Il giorno del giudizio
Year of publication: 1977
Nr of pages: 300
