'It is not often that a masterpiece falls into one's hands. But The Tartar
Steppe is undoubtedly a masterpiece, a sublime book and Buzzati a master of
the written word.' John Keegan Sunday Times

Published in Italy in 1945, The Tartar Steppe is at once a gripping story,
a scathing indictment of military life and a meditation on human thirst for
glory. Young Giovanni Drogo is posted to remote Fort Bastiani, overlooking
the Tartar Steppe. At the furthest fringes of the steppe there is sometimes
mist, sometimes shimmering as of mountains, but no one knows what lives
there. Drogo wants to leave as soon as he arrives, but the place exerts a
gradual enchantment. When for Lieutenant Drogo the years have passed taking
youth, thirst, strength, at last there is action, the enemy begins to take
shape.
    
Dino Buzzati condenses into this novel the bitter wisdom of dissent
brewed during the long years of Mussolini's adventures in Africa and
Europe. It is one of the great books of World War II.