Overview

In this gripping coming-of-age novel, a group of young people's lives and passions collide in unexpected ways as World War II transforms Italy and England. In this gripping coming-of-age novel, a group of young people's lives and passions collide in unexpected ways as World War II transforms Italy and England. Central Italy, on the eve of the Second World War. A group of young Italians find themselves in the midst of what will soon become a civil war. Among them is Stefano Portelli, a hopeful lawyer with a head full of utopias, in love with Eleonora. And there is his sister-in-law Nina, secretly linked to Sergio, a partisan leader. Other lives run parallel to theirs- that of Alastair Ormiston, an English Royal Air Force Pilot, who adores Virginia Woolf's books and dreams of the ideal companion. And that of Edna, his best friend who, in a London bombed by the Nazis, discovers herself and her happiness. If their paths intersect in a shocking way, shuffling the cards of history, it will be through the work of a destiny greater than them, burning them in a bonfire where everything is consumed-joy and pain together.

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9781635424140

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Reviews

“[A] dreamy, elegiac novel…Fortunato’s real strength is in alternating between focusing in closely on the emotional struggles and longings of his many characters and zooming out to consider the progress of the war in Europe and Africa as a whole.” —Booklist Praise for Mario Fortunato: “As I read Fortunato’s writing, I have the impression of being faced with that kind of writer, rare in Italian literature, who, despite starting from a poetic state of mind, nevertheless manages to be a storyteller.” —Alberto Moravia “Mario Fortunato is a natural storyteller.” —Doris Lessing

Praise for Mario Fortunato: “As I read Fortunato’s writing, I have the impression of being faced with that kind of writer, rare in Italian literature, who, despite starting from a poetic state of mind, nevertheless manages to be a storyteller.” —Alberto Moravia “Mario Fortunato is a natural storyteller.” —Doris Lessing

Author Information

Mario Fortunato was born in Cir , Calabria, Italy. For three decades he worked as a literary critic for the Italian current affairs magazine L'Espresso. More recently he has worked as a columnist for the German daily paper S ddeutsche Zeitung. He has also served as director of the Italian Cultural Institute in London. In addition to writing novels such as South (Other Press, 2023), a New York Times Best Historical Fiction Book of the Year, he has translated into Italian works by Evelyn Waugh, Virginia Woolf, and Henry James. Julia MacGibbon has translated works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including Marta Barone's Sunken City. She lives near Rome.

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