Which 1945 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is set in the fictional Italian town of Adano?

A Bell for Adano is the 1945 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set in the fictional Italian town of Adano.

John Hersey published the novel in 1944. It follows Major Victor Joppolo, an Italian American officer serving as military governor after Allied forces occupy the town during World War II. Joppolo tries to restore order while treating residents with dignity and responding to their practical needs.

The town’s church bell has been taken by the Fascist authorities, and recovering a replacement becomes a symbol of civic identity and humane leadership. The story contrasts bureaucratic military priorities with the community’s emotional and cultural concerns.

Hersey drew on his journalism and wartime reporting, though Adano is fictional. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1945. Readers sometimes confuse it with Hersey’s nonfiction Hiroshima, published in 1946, which examines the atomic bombing through eyewitness accounts.