Books & Reviews Archive

> *La Muntagna* had awakened that morning. A dense black cloud of ash loomed over the city, enveloping it. (...) The volcanic sand fell relentlessly, forming a crunching carpet on the ground and sliding off open umbrellas... E as the sky is darkened by the ashes of Mount Etna, so Vice Questore Guarrasi must unravel the mystery of an unknown woman found mummified in a dumbwaiter of a villa on the

Three young men—Davide, the protagonist, Licheri, and Corda—drag out their existence in a Sardinia far removed from the one known to tourists: the sun and the sea are there, but above all, there is boredom and a yearning to escape the provinces to experience the wider world. All three have spent considerable time abroad falling in love with extraordinary women, dancers, but have returned disillus

> For those who do not know me, it is best to state first of all that I am not a human being. I am an anthropoid ape. (...) How I ended up among humans I do not know, and in all likelihood I never will. Sally Jones, the simian narrator of this novel, is intelligent; she lacks only the gift of speech, but understands human language, knows how to write (which is how she communicates), and is excepti

The Italian edition is a revision, also undertaken by the author, of the original Arabic publication of 2003, which bore another title: “how to be suckled by the she-wolf without her biting you.” The two titles, in Italian and in Arabic, constitute two possible interpretive keys to the book. The setting is Piazza Vittorio in Rome, the multicultural venue par excellence, and specifically an apart

The book is set in the year 900 and recounts the story of a young man raised by a countess. Unwittingly, the young man kills his father and, at the countess’s bedside, reads letters that shed light on his life. The book is thoroughly enjoyable; the harsh medieval milieu is depicted with great skill, complemented by scenes of family life and domestic settings.

The book brings together four short stories by young Russian writers who were children when the Soviet Union collapsed and are therefore utterly detached from the themes inherited from the fall of the empire. The stories exhibit entirely different styles and subjects, yet share a common motif: “the search for something we lack,” as concluded by Vladim, the protagonist of Savelyev’s short story, t

At the beginning of the story, Dino Buzzati imagines that a nineteenth-century abbot, «with concise and very clear accounts», speaks of «a wondrous vision» upon beholding the old wood; in a footnote, the author observes how some men grasp the secrets of the woods, perceiving them by «nature», while others will never possess this sensitivity, > and will pass impassive (...) alongside the tenebrou

At the beginning of the tale, Dino Buzzati imagines a nineteenth-century abbot who, "with succinct and very clear accounts," speaks of "a wondrous vision" upon beholding the old forest; in a footnote, the author observes how some men grasp the secrets of the woods, perceiving them by "nature," while others will never possess this sensitivity, > and will pass impassively (...) along the shadowy f

Mikami works in the police department of a provincial city, designated generically by the author as D. After many years spent in criminal investigation, Mikami has been transferred to administrative management, put in charge of the press office. Alongside his new post, two events occur that form the cornerstones of the entire story. A visit from Tokyo by the police chief is scheduled to commemorat

Camillo Boito, elder brother of the more renowned Arrigo, was an art expert who engaged only marginally in literature. Yet his short stories are strikingly modern in the cold detachment and amorality with which the author confronts the ambiguous, unspeakable egoism lurking within the human soul. In his most famous story, *Senso*, Livia is a harsh, shallow, and conceited woman who entrusts a terr

It is Calvino’s first novel. The protagonist is a young boy, Pin, who undergoes an experience that makes him grow up rapidly. The setting is the Ligurian Riviera during the partisan war. Pin lives with his sister, who works as a prostitute and collaborates with the Germans. The boy frequents the tavern and keeps company with the adults, who talk about women and drink wine. The men at the tave

*Separate Flights* is part of a short-story collection centered on a single theme: the disintegration of marital relationships within the nuclear family, now typical of the middle class. One need only dwell on the short story that lends its title to the entire volume to grasp the author’s literary traits and flee, as quickly as possible, from the tedious repetitiveness of the situations, characte

Set in Barcelona, the novels center on Inspector Petra Delicado, who tackles a series of police investigations alongside her partner, Deputy Inspector Fermín Garzón. The two officers display little investigative prowess, chasing multiple leads and frequently overlooking crucial clues. In reality, personal affairs always take precedence. In *Death Rites*, an investigation is finally entrusted to

Dino Buzzati is one of the most fascinating Italian writers of the second half of the twentieth century: suspended between the fantastical and realism, he captured the existential anguish of contemporary man, the absence of hope alongside the intense desire to escape into a better world, beyond reality; he is the Kafka and the Philip Dick of our literature, so often prosaic and lyrical. A great wr

The novel is set in Turin, during these years of economic crisis and social malaise. Elisabetta, who wants to be called Bet, is the first-person narrator of a neorealist story with a happy ending. > We were a family like any other, neither too loud nor too quiet, neither rich nor poor, a working-class family like those in our building and those in the buildings next door : a normal family, unt

The novel is set in Ethiopia during the Italian occupation (1935–1941). The first part, entitled "Invasion", deals with the war between October 1935 and May 1936 that led to the capture of Addis Ababa by Italian forces and the flight of Haile Selassie; the other two parts, "Resistance" and "Return", recount the bloody partisan war that deeply undermined Italy’s colonial ambitions in Ethiopia. Fina

Anyone expecting the China routinely churned out by the mass media—whether to disparage or exalt it—will be disappointed. This novel is set in Shanghai ( > an epicurean metropolis that produced euphoric froth, a new generation of human beings, and was steeped, throughout its streets and alleys, in a frivolous, mournful, and mysterious atmosphere ), but the story could just as easily unfold in N

We are in Spain in 1799. Don Rafel is the powerful chancellor of the Royal Tribunal of Barcelona. The author succinctly describes him as a man > whose life was marked by an unrelenting craving and the restlessness of dissatisfaction, which drove him to dream without being a poet, to fall in love without being a Don Juan, to climb ever higher above others, hoping to attain happiness. Yet, beca

Petra Delicado, the protagonist of Bartlett’s novels, has married an architect who has no fewer than four children. Petra thus finds herself juggling her duties as a police detective, a marital venture she desperately wants to succeed, and relations with stepchildren backed by her husband’s irascible ex-wives. Into this fraught domestic arrangement intrudes a complex and mysterious case: inside

Roberto and Emma come from two different backgrounds: Roberto is a former carabiniere who spent years working undercover within criminal organizations; Emma is an ex-actress, a single mother to a twelve-year-old boy. Their paths cross because they are seeing the same psychiatrist; both need to free themselves > from thoughts or memories. When they arrive, one must observe them with detachment

The novel opens with a paradoxical and amusing scene: an eccentric publisher summons his authors to a Parisian café for a "live reading" of their manuscripts. He read them while "expressing himself": > he was capable of biting his tongue, gnashing his teeth, whistling... (...) his lips were in perpetual motion, in a continuous slaughter, (...) even his nose played a role during these readings, (

In New York, the author meets a strange character, a gemstone expert or perhaps a magician, who convinces him to go to a French village, where he will find an emerald that will reveal his future. The author is persuaded, partly intrigued by what this strange character tells him, partly because he hopes to track down an old flame, Mariolina, and present himself with a jewel of great value. Arrivi

The novel opens in its initial chapters with two seemingly parallel storylines. On the one hand, it recounts the most pivotal episodes in the life of an adolescent, his circle of friends, and his neighborhood in Porto Alegre. The boy perpetually courts risk, yet fails to display genuine courage: thus, he does not come to the aid of a friend who is murdered by a rival gang. There emerges in the

Roger Casement was born in 1864, in the century of the West’s conquest of the world—of that which styled itself as civilization. And the young Roger believes firmly in this civilizing and adventurous spirit, to the point of deciding to go to the Congo, then a land of Belgian conquest. Yet there, reality confronts him in a profoundly different way: > those poor people whipped, mutilated, those