One of the defining literary successes of the 1990s—an expansive Mediterranean epic about war, culture, and the persistence of tenderness despite immense violence.

Set on the Greek island of Cephalonia during the Second World War, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin follows the uneasy occupation of the island by Italian and German forces and the relationships that grow in its shadow. At the centre is Pelagia, the headstrong daughter of the island doctor, and Captain Antonio Corelli, the Italian officer billeted in her home—an exuberant soldier more devoted to music than war.

Louis de Bernières mixes historical tragedy with comic eccentricity, building a novel that moves easily between satire, romance, and wartime catastrophe. Beneath the humour sits a darker historical core: the brutal collapse of Italy’s alliance with Germany in 1943 and the violent reprisals that followed.