Paolo Gioradano's debut novel has sold over a million copies around the world and earned him Italy's premier literary prize, the Premio Strega. Now, finally, we've earned our taste of his celebrated book here in the states. The Solitude of Prime Numbers is a book of striking beauty and disturbing content, including anorexia, cutting, loneliness and guilt. It's a coming-of-age story in the most awkward and lovely tradition, and its two protagonists are destined to win hearts here just as easily as they have abroad.
Giordano is a young author - only 27 - and his acclaim is all the more impressive given that he's a physicist by trade. He'll be here in conversation with his editor and now head of her own eponymous imprint, Pamela Dorman.
News of Note
Death in Spring
Written by Dustin
Monday, 13 July 2009
by Merce Rodoreda (Open Letter, $14.95)
This book may have been written as a loose allegory of fascist Spain, but I love it for being the best depiction of my dreams--good and bad--that I've ever had the questionable pleasure of reading. The book is a horror of sedimentary, implacable myth-logic, rageful nihilistic destruction and bees. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!