Fontamara (1933), written in a Swiss sanatorium and subsequently translated into over 2 dozen languages, was Silone's first book. The novel does not present theoretical and polemic arguments, as might be expected. It is the simple story of village peasants being condemned to wretchedness and unemployment by a ubiquitous big landowner who thwarts their attempts to use the water of a brook to irrigate their plots. The following two novels, Pane e vino (1937; Bread and Wine) and Il seme sotto la neve (1940; The Seed Beneath the Snow), deal with the problematic relationship between party ideology and the exigencies of the cafoni's life.

Una manciata di more (1952) takes up again the failure of political parties to right the wrongs of poverty and injustice in the social structure of society. And again, the discrepancies are seen not in terms of specific political parties but as an oppression of the poor by the rich, with whom any political party will come to terms. Thus, changes on the political scene mean next to nothing if the socially oppressive structure is not changed. In Il segreto di Luca (1956; The Secret of Luca) outward sociopolitical aspects seem to be less obtrusive, but even here, where the right to a personal life clashes with the demands of the state, political overtones are determinant after all. La volpe e le camelie (1960; The Fox and the Camellias) is the first novel of Silone's that is not placed in the Italian South, but it, too, takes up political aspects and their moral and social consequences under Fascist rule. L'avventura d'un povero cristiano (1968), which was awarded the Campiello Prize, depicts the historical clash between popes Celestine V and Boniface VIII and the conflict of individual spirituality with institutionalized religion.

Silone wrote little in the last decades of his life. At a symposium with Arthur Koestler in 1968, Silone called himself "a socialist without a party, a Christian without a church." His last novel, Severina, was finished and largely written by his wife. It was his only work to feature a female protagonist. He died in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1978.