Memorial is the third part of the celebrated trilogy Camon called "the cycle of the lowliest," which traced one of the most important but least recognized events of modern history: the death of Italy's peasant civilization.

Camon's northern Italy was primitive and poor; little more than strong religious beliefs helped sustain its people through years of poverty, hunger, and disease. With the arrival of modern life and its "civilizing" aspects, the peasant ways, and all they stood for, changed forever.

Ferdinando Camon (born in Montagnana 1935) is a contemporary Italian writer. He is married to a journalist and has two sons: Alessandro Camon, a film producer/writer who lives in Los Angeles, and Alberto, who teaches criminal procedure and lives in Bologna. He has contributed to a number of Italian and foreign daily newspapers, including La Stampa, l'Unità, Avvenire, Le Monde and La Nación. Perhaps Camon's best known work in English is his trilogy of fictional memoirs consisting of The Fifth Estate (Il Quinto Stato), Life Everlasting (La Vita Eterna), and Memorial (Un altare per la madre).

"A short novel of exceptional beauty set in an Italian peasant village--a sublime work of art."

--Raymond Carver