Ruin (La malora) by Beppe Fenoglio

Few short novels have proved as striking to me as Ruin.  Perfectly composed,  and a great job by the translator, it puts all those silly books by development economists who try to "represent the lives of the poor" to shame.  Let a writer represent the life of the poor, not an economist.  Anyone who has spent a long time in a village setting in Africa will recognize so much of what Fenoglio writes about.  I almost started crying when Fenoglio writes about Tobia and Agostino, visiting the pharmacy of their landlord in the town of Alba for the first time.  A lady comes in to buy something, and the landlord puts the money in a great silver box that goes "dring" when the door opens.  Tobia and Agostino's ears "prick up" and it is the first thing they talk about when they leave.  The cash register. 

This book would be usefully paired with Uwem Akpan's short stories in a literature class, along with Daniel Mason's A Far Country.

Fenoglio's life is amazingly interesting, and completely unknown to me.  And by the way... I randomly grabbed this book off the shelves of Martin Luther King library in San Jose.  Literally picked it at random (well, from among the slim volumes.)

Here's a nice description of the book (in Italian).