In 1947, he won the Strega Prize for his novel, "Tempo di uccidere "(variously translated as "Miriam", "A Time to Kill", and "The Short Cut"). Set in Ethiopia during the Italian invasion (1935–36), the novel tells the story of an Italian officer who rapes and subsequently kills an Ethiopian woman and is then tormented by the memory of his act. The barren landscape around the protagonist hints at an interior emptiness and meaninglessness. This is one of the few Italian literary works dealing with the misdeeds of Italian colonialism in Eastern Africa. The novel has been continually in print for sixty years. A movie adaptation with the same title, directed by Giuliano Montaldo and starring Nicolas Cage, was released in 1989.