Swimming to Elba

An engaging debut. Publishers Weekly Readers will devour this richly detailed, sensual bildungsroman. Booklist A beach read for strong-willed, independent souls. Kirkus Powerful. As trenchant as it is true. Le Parisien A galvanizing social novel, spacious and strenuous, like a film that would have been cosigned by Ken Loach and Gus Van Sant. Liberation Characters unlike any you ll find in Italian literature nowadays. Goffredo Fofi A book that skims close to the realm of the epic in its description of the desperate and empty lust for life of a tribe of young people and the small and vast tragedies that emerge from their struggles. Giorgio De Rienzo, Corriere delle Sera A novel capable of holding together in the drift or in the tragedy of many lives the thread of a hope that springs from two young lives that may be destined to fit together. Giovanni Tesio, Tuttolibri La Stampa Silvia Avallone has a gift for painting a believable picture of not only her two leading characters, but of a crowd of actors: grief-stricken women, lazy factory workers, brutish thugs who frequent lap-dancing bars, young girls and boys who want to make the world their own. . . . Something verging on the operatic elegantly fills the pages of this remarkable novel. Giovanni Pacchiano, Il Sole 24 Ore With Silvia Avallone, we are in the presence of a natural, original, and untutored talent, capable of capturing the contradictions of her own time in a rebellious, heartbreaking way. But the greatness of this book, at once carnal and chaste [...] lies in the powerful way that it identifies beauty and friendship as the two decisive, all-encompassing emotions of adolescence. It is a book that demands love, in its truthfulness, in its refusal to turn away from the life-giving breath of poetry. Giuseppe Conte, Il Giornale Avallone skillfully tugs every thread in her tapestry with an artist s hand. . . . This Avallone is a force of nature, with her exacting, precise prose, as in the spectacular opening passages. Massimo Onofri, Avvenire Following in the footsteps of the great tradition of a Tuscan and European author like Romano Bilenchi. Davide Barili, Gazzetta di Parma Swimming to Elba is intelligent and well written. It deserves its success: Silvia Avallone gives us a penetrating vision of the way the new proletariat lives. She narrates that story very well. I was reminded of Tuscan authors such as Carlo Cassola and Vasco Pratolini. She is a modern writer, but you can sense those roots. Dacia Maraini, Oggi From this first novel, she might one day write a novel that is to literature what Bernardo Bertolucci s Novecento was for film. Gianfranco Franchi, Secolo d Italia A masterpiece of fine writing, literature in its purest state, as if the words had flowed like molten steel out of the blast furnace, to recount perfect characters and a magnificent story. Caterina Soffici, Il Riformista