This PhD thesis entitled Contemporary Sardinian prose from the second half of the XX century in territorial and cultural conditioning examines Italian prose composed in the second half of the twentieth century by native authors of Autonomous Region of Sardinia. The study is based on literary analysis of the novels written in the period between 1970-2010 and aims to demonstrate cultural and social changes that convolved the region and its inhabitants. To illustrate the modifications observed at different levels of social life some novels of various authors have been chosen. For each decade I have selected one author who exemplifies in the most representative way the question of how the changes in society may influence on the literature and how the literature may recreate the perception of the society. To discuss the aspects of cultural conditioning in Sardinian prose I take into consideration the following authors: Salvatore Satta (1902-1975), Francesco Masala (1916-2007), Maria Giacobbe (1928), Giulio Angioni (1939), Sergio Atzeni (1952-1995), Michela Murgia (1972). I do not intend to analyze them neither in chronological nor in comparative way, but I select the most important aspects of their prose to present how constant elements of Sardinian prose have modified in the course of the second half of the past century. I argue that social and cultural changes as well as geographical conditioning play crucial role in the formation of the authors' literature sensibility and define their relation with the art they create and the place they come from. In each of five chapters dedicated to different contents of the novel, I illustrate how the impact created by various factors of cultural universe of each author is depicted in fictional word. The first chapter (Does Sardinian prose exist?) is dedicated to the question of Sardinian prose. Particular attention is paid to the evolution of this genre, the main problems connected with the classification of the literature composed in the region that used to be a cross point of numerous cultural and linguistic influences. In this part of the thesis the aspect of insular literature will be discussed as well. By placing Sardinian literature in larger context it is possible to compare regional particularities with other cultural universes. My short introduction to Sardinian prose does not aim at the separation of Italian national literature in regional fractions, but firstly tries to illustrate the universality of some questions common to cultures considered different and secondly intends to demonstrate social and cultural repercussions of global changes at local level. In the third (The space and non-palces) and the last (The time always present) chapter I will focus my attention on the formation of new elements in the novels of which origin may be indicated in some turning points of the contemporary history of the region. The elements of the fictional word created by the author reinforce consequently mental schemes and associations related to this particular geographic zone. The example of Sardinian prose offers a good opportunity to observe that, due to geographical and social particularities of this Italian region. I will focus my attention on the local realization of universal patterns common to each culture known as archetype. I have selected some motives of which presence in Sardinian prose is culturally determined and repetitive allusions to them are one of the most frequent element of the genre at the structural level of each analyzed novel. The analyse of those constant motives will illustrate the part of the process known as the formation of collective memory and the reinforcement of the sense of social bounds. The language of the novels occupies my attention as well, and this matter will be discussed in the fourth chapter (Sardinian prose in Italian). The distinction of Sardinian prose in two larger groups (Sardinian prose in Sardinian and Sardinian prose in Italian), according to the language in which single novels are written, is quite troublesome, since in the prose only one langue is rarely used. More often the authors are convinced of the linguistic multidimensionality of the universe and their believes and practical experiences reflect in their literary work. The question of the language becomes even more complicated when we consider the features of Sardinian literature in its different historical periods. Only then will we understand how fluid the concept of regional and national literature may become if only one distinctive element will be taken into consideration. In this thesis I focus my attention only on the novels written in Italian, excluding from my research Sardinian prose written in different varieties of Sardinian, which in my opinion requires different approach, not only due to the linguistic questions. Nonetheless, the selected materials give us the possibility to observe the process of language mixing and code switching in writing. The novelist well conscious of the importance of both language, Italian and Sardinian, try to unite this double presence also in fictional word created in their novels. In other words, they aim to reconstruct the reality and to reach this objective, they use the most significant elements of the non-fictional universe. At different levels of the novel Sardinian lexical, semantic and phonetic unites are inserted, both in Sardinian and Italian version, as well as in Italian translation.