Ciril Kosmac is an outstanding master of the short story who created his own version of a frame story containing a narrative based on memories from his richly varied life. His fiction, composed primarily in the form of short stories, was first sparked by his experiences in 1929 in an Italian fascist jail, by his subsequent flight to exile, and by his long absence from his native region. This absence led to the creation of his only novel, Pomladni dan (1953; translated as A Day in Spring, 1959). His narration is characterized by emotional and moral force when he describes the fascist terror in the Slovenian Littoral, which after the treaty of Rapallo in 1920 fell under Italian authority. He also describes events during World War II in this same region of Slovenia. Kosmac is especially effective in portraying village characters who are nonconformists or eccentrics and he often uses such characters...