Giovannino Guareschi was an extraordinarily talented man who gave himself to a variety of pursuits, both professional and amateur. I suspect many fans are aware that among the different "hats" GG wore were those of journalist, political cartoonist, polemicist, and (of course) story-teller; but did you know that, even if we restrict ourselves to just his "artistic" ones, we can still add more. How about poet, children's author, screenwriter, comic book writer, radio dramatist, painter, lyricist, photographer, and even architect?  [And that's omitting "musician," since I'm told that his brief stint as a mandolin teacher, mentioned in the Introduction to The Little World of Don Camillo, represented more than a bit of a stretch! :-) ] As Alberto Guareschi says, "Don Camillo was just the tip of the iceberg!"

The purpose of this section is to highlight a few of Guareschi's "non-Camillo" creations. Some, like the family stories, are available in English; hopefully your appetite will be whetted sufficiently to motivate you to seek them out. Others, alas, have never been and probably never will be available to GG's English-speaking audience; when we're not busy lamenting the approximately 200 untranslated Don Camillo stories, we can spare some curiosity for these other pieces that will always be "foreign" to us.

Use the links below or those in the menu bar at left to learn more about...

• GG's cartoons and illustrations: from 1930s "New Yorker-esque" drawings to serious post-war political cartoons; from the simple pen-and-ink illustrations accompanying the Don Camillo chapters to several oil paintings. A versatile artist!
• Comic novels (including two available in English) from the early 1940s, in something of a different vein from Don Camillo.
• Humorous stories about the Guareschi family, written by GG between the 1940s and 1960s and collected into several books (including three available in English).
• My Secret Diary, a memoir (of sorts) comprising the various writings GG composed for his fellow prisoners during their WWII internment under the Germans between 1943 and 1945.
• "Carlotta," a song by GG and Arturo Coppola written in 1943 while the two were prisoners.
• Favola di Natale, an illustrated story (with songs) about one child's special Christmas at the height of the War. Written by GG (with music by Coppola) in 1944, still during his captivity.
• "Gente Cosi," a 1949 film for which GG wrote the screenplay (based on a series of his own stories). Impossible to find today, it is not about Don Camillo but anticipates many of the features of the Little World.