New Books in French 

Neige Sinno, Triste Tigre, 2023

The highlight of the fall 2023 literary season in France was undoubtedly the publication of the autobiographical narrative, Triste tigre, by Neige Sinno, a previously unknown writer born and raised in rural France, now living in Mexico where she teaches literature at a university. Unanimously praised by critics for its literary qualities, its original form and its probing exploration of the theme of personal trauma, winner of several literary prizes (including the prestigious Prix Femina), Triste tigre centers on the author’s experience of repeated sexual abuse by her stepfather between the ages of seven and fourteen. It has been described as a radical attempt to give narrative form to the unspeakable, to make intelligible the unintelligible.

Jean-Baptiste Andrea, Veiller sur elle, 2023

The most prestigious French literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, went to Jean-Baptiste Andrea for Veiller sur elle, a great novel (600 pages) of platonic love, art and adventure set in Italy between the two world wars. The two main characters are from different worlds: Mimo, born into a modest French family of Italian descent, a dwarf and tormented soul who will become a sculptor of genius; Viola, intelligent and rebellious, the only daughter of an aristocratic Italian family. They fall in love as very young adolescents and the many twists and turns in the story of their relationship unfold against the background of the rise of Italian fascism, which gives the novel a rich historical dimension. 

Kevin Lambert, Que notre joie demeure, 2022

Also garnering much praise, Que notre joie demeure (Prix Médicis), by the young Canadian writer Kevin Lambert, takes its readers inside the exclusive world of the ultra-rich elites of Montréal. It is the story of a fall. Céline is a brilliant architect at the peak of her international career who finally gets the opportunity to design a major building in her home city of Montréal: the headquarters of a multinational corporation. Soon after, however, she starts to be criticized for having contributed to the gentrification of Montréal and its housing crisis. She is also accused of tax evasion. She is said to be one of those privileged ultra-rich people who refuse to pay their fair share and wage war on the poor. Little by little, her colleagues and friends begin to distance themselves from her…  

Patrick Modiano, La danseuse, 2023
Annie Ernaux, Le jeune homme, 2022

Finally, it is worth noting that the two most recent French recipients of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Patrick Modiano (2014 winner) and Annie Ernaux (2022 winner), have each published a well-received new book in 2022/2023. Ernaux’s Le jeune homme and Modiano’s La danseuse are both short autobiographical/autofictional narratives that nicely encapsulate the themes and style characteristic of their author’s body of work.

-Guillaume Ansart 

New Books in Italian

Sonia Aggio, Nella stanza dell’imperatore, 2024

Sonia Aggio, a historian and a librarian writes magnificent historical novels and tales. Her latest book displays a refined style, a careful attention to detail, as well as a complex plot full of narrative developments, fits fully into the vein of the historical novel in its highest sense. “In the Emperor's Room” reconstructs the existential parable of the Byzantine emperor John Zimisce who, as a simple soldier, managed to ascend to the throne of one of the largest and most powerful empires that ever existed. A valuable literary text, which deals with important universal themes narrated with a refined and elegant style, through continuous twists and turns.

Donatella Di Pietrantonio, L’eta’ fragile, 2023

Di Pietrantonio is a pediatric dentist who began publishing fiction about 15 years ago. Her latest novel, L’eta’ fragile, winner of the 2024 Strega Prize (together with the Campiello –which Di Pietrantonio won in 2017—the most prestigious literary prize in Italy) takes place during the Covid 19 pandemic lockdown, and it talks about the difficult relationship between a mother and her 20-year-old daughter — both wounded by life. It is a book extremely well written and with a rare psychological depth, that dives into gender violence, with a sad transgenerational view, which makes reference to a brutal crime that happened in the late 1990’s in Abruzzo, Di Pietrantonio’s region.

Raffaella Romagnolo, Aggiustare l’universo, 2024

After her 2020 bestseller Di luce propria (Milan: Mondadori), Romagnolo, a High School teacher of Italian and History, has written a novel that tells the story of a psychological relationship that takes place in 1945 between a young elementary school teacher, Gilla, a partisan who wants to put the violence of WWII behind her, and one of her new students, Francesca, whose real name is Esther—an orphan of war, and a victim of the racial laws instituted by the fascist regime. The former wishes to look ahead, although she knows her strength comes from her rejection of fascism; the latter wants to linger on the only few decent memories she has. The development of the specific relationship as well as the historical context (Italy right after WWII) are narrated with great sophistication.

Daniele Rielli, Il fuoco invisibile, 2024

This is a novel and a book of non-fiction at the same time. Rielli narrates, with fictional strategies, the Xylella epidemic that killed over 21 million olive trees—many of them several centuries old—throughout Italy. Rielli, who is also a scriptwriter—a trade that is discernable in his filmic writing as well as in his ability to create narrative climaxes—reconstruct, analyzes, and gives voice to one of the worst agricultural disasters, that is strictly correlated to our inability to cope with the climate issues that our modern society causes.

Dario Voltolini, Invernale, 2024

Voltolini, novelist, playwriter, professor of creative writing, in his latest book propels the reader through the hypocrisy of a carnivore world that removes what is considered necessary, but not pleasant to display. He does so through his tell-tale of the daily life of a well-meaning butcher who mediates between his voracious but polite clients, and the reality of cutting through the other animal bodies, to carve what is acceptable to display and sell. But the novel is also a beautiful narration of the relationship between the butcher and his son, who will take care of his father who, while performing his professional duties, cuts himself and develops a lethal infection that will destroy his own flesh.

-Andrea Ciccarelli