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Angelo, a private in Mussolini's 'ever-glorious' Italian army, may possess the virtues of love and an engaging innocence but he lacks the gift of courage. However, due to circumstances beyond his control, he ends up fighting not only for Italy but also for the British and German armies.
With his patron the Count, the beautiful Lucrezia, the charming Annunziata, and the delightful Major Telfer, Angelo's fellow characters are drawn with humour, insight and sympathy, making the book a wittily satirical comment on the grossness and waste of war.
Eric Linklater, who served with the Black Watch in Italy in World War II, is one of Scotland's most distinguished writers. In Private Angelo he has written a book which demonstrates that honour is not solely the preserve of the brave.
Eric Linklater (1899-1974) was born in Wales and educated in Aberdeen. His family came from the Orkney Islands (his father was a master mariner), and the boy spent much of his childhood there.
Linklater served as a private in the Black Watch at the close of WWI, surviving a nearly fatal head wound to return to Aberdeen to take a degree in English. A spell in Bombay with the Times of India was followed by some university teaching in Aberdeen again, and then a Commonwealth Fellowship which allowed him to travel in America from 1928 to 1930.