[aka Children of the Shadows: The True Story of the Street Urchins of Naples]

"A damning indictment ... Mr. West has written with deep feeling." - Catholic Times.

First published in the 1950s, this non-fiction book deals with the plight of the urchins of Naples, homeless boys who sleep in doorways, and beg and steal and scratch along as best they can, unprotected by the State. Padre Mario Borrelli sets out to help, and embarks on a journey of self-transformation.

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There was a child whom I used to visit in the House of the Urchins. His name is Antonino. He was eight years old, but his body was so small and his face so pinched and pale that you would have taken him for five or six. When I came into the small dusty courtyard where he played with the other boys, he would leave the game immediately and run to me, arms outstretched, calling my name ... Then I knew that I must write this book, to purge myself of the nightmare. I must make my voice the voice of the children, the hungry, the homeless, the dispossessed, the damned innocents of Naples.

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Eight years old, his body so small, his face so pinched, you would take him for five or six ... Antonino, homeless, loveless child of dark alleys -- a scugnizzo of the Naples slums, one of thousands whose waking hours are spent in petty crime and traffic in vice and whose bed is a street grating above a baker's oven.

In the appalling darkness of their lives, only one light shines -- Don Mario Borrelli, the priest of the Urchins, dedicated to saving what he can of this human wreckage.