About the Author

Niccolò Ammaniti was born in Rome in 1966. He is the author of many novels translated into English and two short story collections. Several of his novels have been adapted for film, including Steal You Away, which was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, The Crossroads, winner of the Premio Strega Prize 2007, and the international bestseller I'm Not Scared, which won the prestigious Italian Viareggio-Repaci Prize for Fiction and has been translated into thirty-five languages.

Translated from the Italian by Jonathan Hunt. Hunt divides his time between Italy and Britain. His translations include Niccolò Ammaniti's The Crossroads and Steal You Away, Nicolai Lilin's Siberian Education, Luca Rastello's I Am the Market, and Giorgio Vasta's Time on My Hands.

Reviews

An exquisite parable
* * Daily Telegraph * *

A deft masterpiece with never a false note
* * Guardian * *

Ammaniti's prose is faultless from the first
* * Independent on Sunday * *

The new Italian word for talent is Ammaniti
* * The Times * *

Beneath this simplicity, Ammaniti weaves in the fairytale metaphors we know so well, giving the novel a haunting profundity
* * Sunday Herald * *