Don Camillo and Don Chichi

Guareschi's searing, slapstick satire on the modern world


A gang of Hells Angels rips through the village we love so well, bringing mayhem and a generational shift to traditional enmities between Don Camillo and Peppone. The year is 1966, a time ripe for rebellion, for overturning conventions – a time, above all, to be young. Meanwhile, beset by the third young progressive leftwing priest with a mandate to steer him into the modern world, Don Camillo digs in and finds a surprise ally in Peppone as he fights to save the three-metre high figure of il Cristo through which he conducts his famous conversations with God.


These are the last Don Camillo stories ever written. Two years after they are set, on July 22, 1968, the author died in Cervia on the east coast of Italy, where, due to ill health, he had taken to spending the summer months.


‘Guareschi’s was one of the most prescient and perceptive voices of the twentieth century.’ Tobias Jones, author of The Dark Heart of Italy.


‘Guareschi’s tales are absolutely delightful in their satirical swipes at human weakness.’ Paul Merton