A magnificent figure of a lay missionary, throughout his life Umberto Zanotti Bianco committed himself to the civil and cultural growth of the populations of the deep South of Italy, oppressed by the disinterest of the state. Zanotti Bianco was also a refined writer: the present work offers an in-depth analysis of the prose of Tra la perduta gente (1959), a volume which gathers together, thirty years after their composition, seven documentary stories (between chronicle and memory, existence and history) on the "dannati della terra" ("the wretched of the Earth") and the pain of their "malvivere".