WINNER OF ITALY'S 20TH "ALPINI SEMPRE" LITERARY PRIZE
An Alpino reservist is recalled to the Julia Division and sent to the frozen Eastern Front with the Italian Army in Russia, determined to make it home to the woman he loves.
It is 1942, and the Don River has become a boundary between two warring ideologies. Rinaldo, an ordinary man who has already served his country, is among the Italians sent there to fight.
When Soviet forces break through the line, Rinaldo and his unit are forced into a brutal retreat across the frozen steppe. Back in Italy, his wife, Eleonora, gives birth to their first child and refuses to give up hope of his return.
But the Don is more than a river. For a boy growing into a man, it becomes another word for father-and the beginning of a lifelong search for the truth about a soldier who never came home.