My Latest... Recently Released Publications

M: SON OF THE CENTURY  
by Antonio Scurati
 Fourth Estate/HarperCollins, UK April 2021.
 HarperCollins US, April 2022.
 (Il figlio del secolo, Bompiani, 2018)

Winner of the Premio Strega 2019
Read an excerpt here: https://lithub.com/m-son-of-the-century/

Antonio Scurati’s “M.,” a novel about the rise of the dictator, Benito Mussolini, was on Italian best-seller lists for weeks. “In the Italian imagination, Mussolini remains a kind of totem, a figure of great charisma, a kind of perverse national father whom we have repressed,” Scurati said in an interview. The unexpected popularity of “M” has provoked debate in Italy on Mussolini’s legacy. Some say the book is a much-needed reminder of the evils of fascism, particularly for young people. Jonathan Burnham, president and publisher of the Harper division of HarperCollins called the book “a timely investigation of how fascism can take root in a society.”

Washington Post: “An Italian bestseller about Mussolini’s rise is a cautionary tale”:
 https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/04/06/mussolini-novel-antonio-scurati-book-review/
Publishers Weekly: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-06-295611-8
“A New Book About Mussolini Is Provoking a Debate Over His Legacy.”: New York Times, Dec. 8, 2018 

       


Game of the Gods
by Paolo Maurensig
World Editions, January 2021
(Il gioco degli dei, Einaudi, 2019)
Poised between East and West, between reality and fiction, Game of the Gods is the story of Malik Mir Sultan Khan,
the humble servant who for a brief moment became king.
An American journalist, stationed in Punjab in the mid-sixties, decides to meet the man whom the gods or chance
endowed with a natural talent at chaturanga, the ancient Indian ancestor of chess. Brought to the court of a nabob who
helps him perfect his style in the chaturanga, he is introduced to the western version of the game so that he can humiliate
the British colonialists and show off his victories throughout Europe. A success on the world stage of chess, his skills
eventually drag Malik into a strange game of warfare that will decide the fate of the Second World War.


HEAVEN AND EARTH by Paolo Giordano
Orion/W&N, June 2020, and Pamela Dorman Books/Viking, July 2020.
(Divorare il cielo, Einaudi, 2018) 
Giordano’s latest novel is a book that will not leave anyone indifferent. On the contrary. 
Here too, as in his earlier works, the author has given us sensitively and compassionately 
drawn characters, “imperfect people in extreme situations” as one reviewer once said 
about his work. All in all, another haunting, moving work that will surely engage readers. 




A DEVIL COMES TO TOWN by Paolo Maurensig
World Editions, May 2019
 (Il diavolo nel cassetto, Einaudi, 2018)
A story within a story within a story, a manuscript found in the drawer of an aspiring writer,
and a cleric’s tale about events that took place in the Swiss village of Dichtersruhe (“poet’s repose”),
where Goethe is said to have once spent a night, and which is now populated with closet writers.
A tale about rabid foxes, the devil who appears in flesh and blood professing to be a publisher,
the collective hysteria of the villagers, etc. An absorbing mystery on one level, the book may also
be read as a wry apologue on vanity and conceit, as well as a fable about popular superstitions,
such as the atavistic fear inspired by the fox. Like a rabid fox that exhibits strange behavior,
approaching humans rather than fleeing from them, the devil, too, plays tricks to get close
to his intended victim.
  


SOLITARY by Maurizio Torchio
Seagull Books, April, 2019
 (Cattivi, Einaudi, 2015)
From the dark pit of an isolation cell a voice wells up. It is that of a prisoner serving a life sentence
for kidnapping: a cruel play of mirrors that replicates perpetrators and victims, imprisonment and freedom,
in a kaleidoscopic effect. What takes place in solitary confinement is pure time, devoid of events.
So much so that it makes the world outside seem even more evanescent, more unreal than the past,
more illusory than dreams. A coincidence of loneliness unites and equalizes prisoners and jailers.
Solitary is a novel of suppressed words and feelings, distorted by the internment that restricts them,
as well as a story of survival in extreme conditions. Critic Goffredo Fofi wrote: “One of the best books
about the condition of captivity or, by extension, about the human condition.”
  


SNAPSHOTS by Claudio Magris
Yale University Press, February 26, 2019
(Istantanee, La Nave di Teseo, 2016)
A collection of quick takes whose dates range from 1999 to 2013, most of
the pieces are very brief, offering glimpses of life and culture as captured
through the author’s very personal lens. The panoramic nature of the
vignettes is broad in scope, encompassing a variety of subjects rendered
in quick, decisive brushstrokes and always engaging.

  


DEVIATION by Luce d'Eramo
Farrar Straus Giroux, September 18, 2018
 Pushkin Press, January 31, 2019
 (Deviazione, Mondadori, 1979; Feltrinelli 2012)
A fictional account of the time the author spent in the Nazi labor camps
during World War II, when as a young woman she left home to go and
see for herself the stark reality of oppression and exploitation. A harrowing,
surreal experience told with great emotional intensity.

  


DESTINATION PARADISE:
AMONG THE JIHADISTS OF THE MALDIVES
by Francesca Borri
Seven Stories Press, November 13, 2018
(Einaudi, 2017)
A reporter’s thoughtful and spirited foray into a Maldives that lies beyond the facade
presented to tourists who visit the islands. Though vacationers at the resorts are largely
unaware that they are in a Muslim country, the Maldives is a jihadist breeding ground:
“In the Maldives everybody has a brother, a cousin, a friend in Syria. In August, while the
whole world watched the Olympics, in the Maldives everyone watched the Battle of Aleppo.”

Finalist for the European Press Prize
Distinguished Writing Award 2017
   

GOD IS YOUNG by Pope Francis with Thomas Leoncini
 Random House, October 2, 2018
 (Dio è giovane, Piemme, 2018) 
 In this interview with author/journalist Thomas Leoncini, Pope Francis reflects on the role that
young people can play in bringing about a renewal of society in today's world. The pontiff’s words 
carry hope for a future “revolution of tenderness,” and the 2018 Synod on Young People represents
the ideal framework for stimulating dialogue and building a bridge between the elderly and the
young, the “old dreamers” and the “young prophets.”

   



JOURNEYING by Claudio Magris
Yale University Press, March 20, 2018
 (L’infinito viaggiare, Mondadori, 2005). A collection of travel writings,
which the author dedicates to the companions of his journey whom he has
loved, and who have already arrived. Journeying with Magris, the reader
travels through time and against time in a passage that is a continuous
preamble, a prelude to something that is always still to come and always
just around the corner.
  


THEORY OF SHADOWS by Paolo Maurensig
Farrar Straus Giroux, January 2018
(Teoria delle ombre, Adelphi, 2015)
Who killed world chess champion Alexander Alekhine? The investigation
is skillfully elaborated by the chess-loving author of The Lüneburg Variation.
  


THE NIGHT OF THE MOTHS by Riccardo Bruni
AmazonCrossing, December 2017
 (La notte delle falene, Amazon Publishing, 2015)
An intriguing mystery, originally an Amazon self-published title that made it onto the
Premio Strega 2016 long-list. Under the wistful gaze of the murdered victim, Alice, the
friends of one time are transported back to the events of that night ten years ago when
their youthful world was shattered, plunging them into the darkness of a violence
still shrouded in shadow.

BLAMELESS by Claudio Magris
Yale University Press, April 2017
 (Non luogo a procedere, Garzanti, 2015)
From one of Europe’s most revered authors, a tale of one man’s obsessive
project to collect the instruments of death, evil, and humanity’s darkest atrocities
in order to oppose them. Centered on a man whose maniacal devotion to the
creation of a Museum of War dedicated to the documentation of war for the
promotion of peace, Claudio Magris’s new novel ruthlessly confronts the human
obsession with war and its savagery in every age and time, and involves both a
horrible secret and the hope of redemption. A narrative that becomes a hymn to peace,
a plea to eliminate war and a condemnation of those who condone evil:
"This is hell; general amnesty, absolution before trial, the decision not to prosecute."



NEVER AGAIN SO CLOSE by Claudia Serrano
AmazonCrossing, January 2017
(Mai più così vicina, Giunti, 2015)
A young woman moves to Milan to pursue her long-held dream of writing a
novel. But when she meets the charismatic Vittorio, he upends her world
and changes her priorities. Their whirlwind relationship is as thrilling as it
is painful.



DON'T TELL ME YOU'RE AFRAID by Giuseppe Catozzella
The Penguin Press, August 2016
 (Non dirmi che hai paura, Feltrinelli, 2014)
A finalist for the 2014 edition of the Premio Strega, this is a moving story
about an extraordinary, spirited young Somali woman who leaves her
homeland, determined to pursue her dream. An affecting narrative with
truly wrenching moments.



SYRIAN DUST by Francesca Borri
Seven Stories Press, April 2016
 (La Guerra Dentro, Bompiani, 2014)
A raw and powerful account of the Syrian war that pitches the reader
right into the middle of it, with no place to hide or take shelter.



MY ITALIANS by Roberto Saviano
 Penguin UK, May 2016
 (Vieni via con me, Feltrinelli, 2011)
The book is based on a TV program called Vieni Via Con Me (Come
Away With Me), with episodes narrating the clandestine operations
of the powerful Neapolitan Camorra, among other stories.


LIKE FAMILY by Paolo Giordano
Pamela Dorman Books / Viking/Penguin, December 2015
 (Il nero e l'argento, Einaudi, 2014)
The author's third novel is the story of a happy, untried couple, and
the housekeeper who becomes the custodian of their relationship and the
compass by which they may orient themselves in calm or stormy seas.



THREE LIGHT-YEARS by Andrea Canobbio
Farrar, Straus & Giroux,  2014; The MacLehose Press,  2015
 (Tre anni luce, Feltrinelli, 2013)
 Certain loves seem light years away. Yet sometimes they are the most
significant, the only ones that really count for us: the ones that generate
the universe in which we live.
    


THE HUMAN BODY by Paolo Giordano
 Pamela Dorman Books / Viking/Penguin, 2014
 (Il corpo umano, Mondadori, 2012)
Giordano’s second novel, set at a military base in Afghanistan, recounts the
experience of a platoon of young soldiers for whom the mission in Afghanistan
will be the first major challenge of their lives.
  

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