The Tartar Steppe

| 4.44 | 15,234 ratings and reviews

Recommended by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Robert Baer, and 2 others. See all reviews

Ranked #6 in Italian, Ranked #30 in Italy — see more rankings.

Idealistic young officer Giovanni Drogo is full of determination to serve his country well. But when he arrives at a bleak border station in the Tartar desert, where he is to take a short assignment at Fort Bastiani, he finds the castle manned by veteran soldiers who have grown old without seeing a trace of the enemy. As his length of service stretches from months into years, he continues to wait patiently for the enemy to advance across the desert, for one great and glorious battle . . . Written in 1938 as the world waited for war, and internationally acclaimed since its publication, The... more

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We've comprehensively compiled reviews of The Tartar Steppe from the world's leading experts.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb AuthorRecommends this book

Robert Baer This book is all about Italians stationed on a remote Eurasian frontier. Of course they never were, but The Tartar Steppe is a metaphor for devoting your life to a higher good, for wanting to do public service and to make a difference. And you essentially give up everything. The main character, Giovanni Drogo, gives up his fiancée, his mother and his friends to wait for the Tartars who never come. There is this horrible fort where he lives, this daily grind and no sense of normal life. His life is wasted. (Source)

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