'We're not Christians," they say. "Christ stopped short of here, at Eboli." - Carlo Levi
In 1935 Carlo Levi, an anti fascist activist intellectual from Northern Italy, was exiled to a tiny and remote Basilicata village called Aliano. Set atop a barren mountaintop, surrounded by deep, sandy, ravines and far from train lines or public transport, the peasants of Aliano, and, for a time, Levi, were cut off from the outside world. Trained as a doctor, Levi preferred to paint and write and made a name for himself in both those professions, firstly and most importantly, with his memoirs of his time in Aliano. 'Christ Stopped at Eboli' is a collection of impressions of a year living amongst the impoverished villagers who he befriended and never forgot, choosing to stay with them even in death. Levi, is, in fact, buried in the local cemetery, according to his wishes.