Perfection
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Millennial expat couple Anna and Tom are living the dream in Berlin, in a bright, affordable, plant-filled apartment. Their life as young digital creatives revolves around slow cooking, Danish furniture, sexual experimentation and the city’s twenty-four-hour party scene – an ideal existence shared by an entire generation and tantalizingly lived out on social media. But beyond the images, dissatisfaction and ennui burgeon. Feeling increasingly trapped in their picture-perfect life, the couple takes ever more radical steps in the pursuit of an authenticity and a sense of purpose perennially beyond their grasp.
Original title in Italian Le perfezioni, published by Bompiani (2022)
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Sophie
Hughes
Sophie Hughes is the translator of over twenty novels by authors such as Fernanda Melchor, Alia Trabucco Zerán and Enrique Vila-Matas. She has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, the Dublin Literary Award, and the Valle Inclán Prize, and in 2021 she was awarded the Queen Sofía Translation Prize. She lives in Trieste.
Sophie Hughes is the translator of over twenty novels by authors such as Fernanda Melchor, Alia Trabucco Zerán and Enrique Vila-Matas. She has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, the Dublin Literary Award, and the Valle Inclán Prize, and in 2021 she was awarded the Queen Sofía Translation Prize. She lives in Trieste.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
“Perfections” deserves recognition for its keen exploration of contemporary themes and its refined prose. The novel stands out for its ability to capture the essence of a generation, that of millennials, grappling with the search for meaning in a world saturated with information and opportunities, yet precarious and alienating. Latronico succeeds in depicting with delicacy and without judgment the lives of the two protagonists, anna and tom, their pursuit of an authentic existence between Milan and Berlin, their relationship with success, failure, and social expectations.
The writing is another strong point: precise, elegant, at times minimalist, but always capable of evoking vivid images and delving into the psychological depths of the characters. The author demonstrates remarkable skill in building a suspended and melancholic atmosphere, reflecting the condition of uncertainty and the difficulty of finding one’s place in the world.
Furthermore, “Perfections” is a book that invites reflection. It addresses universal themes such as identity, human relationships, the gap between expectations and reality, and the role of art and creativity in contemporary society. It does so in a non-didactic way, leaving the reader space to interpret and to confront their own experiences. (Biblioteca San Giorgio, Pistoia)