In Search of a Glorious Death

This autobiographical narrative provides an alternative perspective of World War I, recounting the experiences of a Roman schoolboy who volunteered to fight against the Allies after Italy surrendered in 1943. But he is not sent to the front. Instead, with professional soldiers from the Russian front and fanatical fascists, he fights in the civil war that raged in Mussolini's puppet state. He is captured in Milan after the German surrender and is spared execution by his captors, boys of his own age.