THE VILLAGE IN THE MOUNTAINS is set in a fictional, southern European country in the middle of the twentieth century. After a brief period of democratic reform, the nation has once again become a totalitarian state under the rule of the Colonel, whose overriding creed is "Loyalty to the State, the Church, the Family". The narrator of the book is a left-wing poet from a prominent family, whose personal story is intertwined with the political events of his birthplace. During the days of the ...