Winner of the Premio Strega, Italy's most prestigious literary award, The Faithful Lover is a sumptuously imagined collection by one of the twentieth century's most renowned writers. Eclectic and astute, these remarkable stories show us that the border between this world and the out-of-this-world may be more permeable than we think. In Encounter, a young man eavesdrops on a pair of ghostly lovers, while in Lights, the whisperings of a mysterious voice steer the unnamed narrator towards an elusive destination. Other stories are grounded in the everyday, showcasing the incisive mix of tragedy and comedy that is central to Bontempelli's work. The upside of insanity creates a moral dilemma for a loving mother in Empress, while in Octogenarian, an elderly woman summons her family to her deathbed for one final, hilarious domestic dispute. The title story pokes brutal fun at the narrator's fleeting affections, and in the renowned novella Water, an ethereal young woman's innocence wrecks havoc