A fable for adults about ecology, lunacy, and love. The protagonist, Augustus the Second Valle, is the grandson of the founder of the FIFA button factory in Lombardy. He inherits the factory, but his main interest is the birds who live in the surrounding gardens and whom he, like Saint Francis, talks to on a regular basis.
Newly translated into English, Giuseppe Berto’s 1973 novel Oh, Serafina! is a whimsical fable of ecology, lunacy, and love. One of the first environmentally-conscious works of Italian literature, it questions the destructive effects of industrial capitalism, the many forms spirituality might take, and the ways our society defines madness.
