The Solitude of Prime Numbers
ABOUT
THE BOOK
A prime number is inherently a solitary thing: it can only be divided by itself, or by one; it never truly fits with another. Alice and Mattia also move on their own axes, alone with their personal tragedies. As a child Alice’s overbearing father drove her first to a terrible skiing accident, and then to anorexia. When she meets Mattia she recognises a kindred spirit, and Mattia reveals to Alice his terrible secret: that as a boy he abandoned his mentally-disabled twin sister in a park to go to a party, and when he returned, she was nowhere to be found.
These two irreversible episodes mark Alice and Mattia’s lives for ever, and as they grow into adulthood their destinies seem irrevocably intertwined. But then a chance sighting of a woman who could be Mattia’s sister forces a lifetime of secret emotion to the surface.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Shaun
Whiteside
Shaun Whiteside is a literary translator. Originally from Northern Ireland, he graduated with a First in Modern Languages from King’s College, Cambridge, and translates from German, French, Italian and Dutch, having previously worked as a business journalist and television producer.
Shaun Whiteside is a literary translator. Originally from Northern Ireland, he graduated with a First in Modern Languages from King’s College, Cambridge, and translates from German, French, Italian and Dutch, having previously worked as a business journalist and television producer.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
Giordano is a professional physicist and is currently working on a doctorate in particle physics. The Solitude of Prime Numbers, his first novel, has sold over a million copies and it is being translated into 30 languages. Winner of the Premio Strega Award for 2008.
La obra ha sido traducida al alemán y al francés. Ha sido merecedora le los siguientes premíos Premio Biblioteca Breva de la editorial Seix Barral y ganó el Premio Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz de la Ferian Internacional del libro de Guadalajara Méxica del 2008. La Autora ha recibido múltiples premios por varias de sus novelas.