were seen as marking a tentative return to 'normality' in Italian cultural life: a feature of the reconstruction which followed the years of Fascism, war, occupation and liberation.

The first winner of the Strega, elected by the Sunday Friends, was Ennio Flaiano, for his first and only novel Tempo di uccidere, which is set in Africa during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. It has been translated