Die Gärten der Finzi-Contini

It is the story of Micól, the mysterious girl with blonde hair from an aristocratic Jewish family, whom the first-person narrator has been in vain in love with from the very beginning. She passionately loves playing tennis, adores the old trees in her parents' walled park, and cannot stand it when someone behaves in a common manner. Later, as a student, she prefers to flirt rather than study, and she admonishes the young men who would gladly die for her to be reasonable over the phone. Only when the tennis club excludes Jewish members due to racial laws does the garden of the Finzi-Contini open up for the Jewish youth of Ferrara and become their meeting place - until one day in the autumn of 1943, when Micól is deported with her entire family, and no one knows if they found a grave. Giorgio Bassani has created a monument to them in this book.