Translated by Jonathan Hunt
From the author of the international bestseller, I’m Not Scared.
You’ve got to taste the high life once a week, otherwise what’s the point of living?
In swampy Ischiano Scalo, the grown-ups are losers and the children dream of escape.
Pietro is a frustrated eleven-year-old, finding it hard to deal with school bullies and indifferent parents. His only support comes from his pretty friend Gloria and favourite teacher Flora.
Graziano, aka Big Biglia, is an ageing Lothario who returns to the village with plans of marriage, though they are soon thwarted. Almost at once this oafish child-man finds another, unsuspecting paramour.
In this wild and mordantly funny picaresque tale of small-town life, Ammaniti confirms his status as Italy’s best young writer.
andSteal You Away
‘The new Italian word for talent is Ammaniti.’
‘Beneath the seemingly ordinary town life lurk brutal truths about a depressed countryside and the desperation of its poor inhabitants…another powerful story about the loss of childhood innocence in small-town Italy…Ammaniti’s chilling and intimate story may be scored with sadness and violence, but he also has a very good line in sly humour.’
‘The book unfolds with menace. Keeping the reader teetering on the brink of horrific possibilities…An affecting and shattering novel about the fragility of the human mind and the inherent selfishness of human beings.‘
‘Steal You Away has the momentum of a thriller and a cast of unforgettable grotesques, a masterpiece of betrayal and destruction, of thwarted hopes, unrequited loves, grand dreams and sad realities.’
