The Anniversary

Written with wisdom and coiled passion, The Anniversary dramatizes the struggles of a wife and a mother for freedom, autonomy and self-realization against the forces of repression. It is a brilliant portrait of a single soul and her interior life, but also of a society in flux, in the process of change, in the process also of staying the same. Bajani's novel is intense, sharply imagined and fascinating -- Colm Toibin The Anniversary is about patriarchy and family and the dream of self-determination. It is also about the possibilities of fiction and the novel as a form. Bajani is an extraordinary and uncompromising artist. Every page is written with lucidity, depth, honesty and forensic intelligence -- Katie Kitamura A book that confronts the purity of fact, the tyranny of memory, and the totalitarianism of family like no other -- Jhumpa Lahiri With a voice both implacable and refined, Andrea Bajani plants a mine under the picture of a family. And he makes it explode in his truest book yet -- Donatella Di Pietrantonio A deeply affecting, important book. A sharp analysis and at the same time a tragic farewell to one’s own family -- Jenny Erpenbeck I have read more than one Bajani novel. Each is completely unexpected, and each is somehow startling and able to take up residence in my life. This is what I long for in a novel. Bajani is a rare, rare find -- Richard Ford A merciless and beautiful book -- Georgi Gospodinov Sharp as a showdown, poignant as a farewell -- Antonio Scurati A scandalously calm book -- Emmanuel Carrère