I Malavoglia is one of the great landmarks of Italian Literature. It is so rich in character, emotion and texture that it lives forever in the imagination of all who read it. What Verga called in his preface a 'sincere and dispassionate study of society' is an epic struggle against poverty and the elements by the fishermen of Aci Trezza, told in an expressive language based on their own dialect. "Giovanni Verga's novel of 1881 I Malavoglia presented its translator Judith Landry with formidable problems of dialect and peasant speech which she has solved so unobtrusively that one wonders why this moving and tragic tale is so little known in England." Margaret Drabble in The Observer's Books of the Year