Domenico Starnone

> I was heading to the beach, (...) minding my own business, when suddenly everything came to a halt: the wind, the sea, the shrubs, the beating of heart and flutter of eyelashes, (...) and in that moment of disoriented stillness the only thing moving was a small figure outlined in gold: not a body, not a pirouette of dust, not a flicker of light, but a presence that dashed along the wood of the s

It is difficult to find a common thread in this short novel, with its slender plot, its characters merely sketched because yearned for, and its misleading title. Yet there is an anchor: the figure of the grandmother, around whom unfolds the coming-of-age journey of the protagonist, the first-person narrator of this story. > Far too short in stature, plump and hunchbacked, rather homely with her