Ulteriori informazioni
Reminiscent of the works of Joanna Quinn and The Children''s Train , a poignant and hopeful novel, set in small town 1940s Italy, in which a young illiterate herdsman learns to read with the help of his two friends--a gift that will open his eyes to a new world and change the course of his life. September 1942. Davide is an uneducated but sensitive pigskeeper, a dreamer who imagines a life beyond his small town in Southern Italy--away from the animals he cares for, from the other children who mock him for the limp he has born since birth, and the brutal hand of his Mussolini-loving father. Teresa, his friend and the only person with the courage to defend him from the schoolroom bullies, also yearns to escape. She hopes to go to Rome before she is trapped in a marriage of convenience arranged by her parents. When a group of thirty-six Jews from Naples forcibly relocated by the Fascist authorities arrives, everyday life begins to change. Among them is Nicolas, a boy who brings with him an unknown world that is initially met with animosity by the villagers. But when Nicolas'' father sets up an underground school, Davide begins to attend classes and soon, as he learns to read, this illiterate herdsman begins a journey that will change him forever. As Davide, Teresa, and Nicolas grow closer, they venture into the countryside surrounding the village and into the unmarked terrain of adolescence and unspoken feelings. Though the war and a single tragic event will break them apart, their friendship indelibly marks Davide, leading him on the path to a new future beyond this small world. Many years later, Davide, now a successful writer for the theater, sets out to find his lost friends again.
Info autore
A native of Naples, Gianni Solla has published short stories in international anthologies and literary magazines and collaborated with Il Napoli from 2006 to 2010. His monologue "Tooth Dust" is performed in the theater. He is the author of the novels Airbag, The Shark’s Sniff, and Mother Storm. There Was a Time for Such a Word is his first work to be published in English.
Relazione
"A moving book affirming that, despite everything, we can grow even when everything around us conspires to prevent it. The wounds that remain open force us to return to our origins. These returns are painful, but necessary to close the circle between the present and the past, to measure the distance between what we were and what we have achieved through effort." - La Stampa
An alluring chronicle of a restless young man's coming-of-age. - Publishers Weekly
"With There Was a Time for Such a Word, Gianni Solla has written a very subtle, quiet story about friendships forged in times of inhumanity." - Nürnberger Nachrichten
"This novel shows that you can escape from a place, and perhaps from yourself, but sooner or later life asks you to return, giving you back so much beauty!" - L'Osservatore Romano
"A story about those first times in everyone's life." - Mangialibri
"An impressive book." - Westfälische Rundschau
"Gianni Solla has written a love story of overwhelming power that unfolds in three parts and reads as thrillingly as a crime novel." - Badische Neueste Nachrichten
