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2025 Longlist

The City of the Living

Translated from the Italian
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ABOUT
THE BOOK

In March 2016, in an apartment on the outskirts of Rome, two “ordinary” young men brutally tortured and murdered twenty-two-year-old Luca Varani. News of the crime sent shockwaves across Rome. What motivated such extreme violence? Were the killers evil or in the grip of societal evils? Did they know what they were doing, or were they possessed? And if the latter, by what? Lagioia leads us through a maze of betrayed expectations, sexual confusion, economic grievance and identity crises to locate the breaking point after which anything is possible. Sharp, hypnotic, devastating, The City of The Living is not just the story of a crime, but of human nature itself.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Nicola
Lagioia

One of Italy’s most critically acclaimed contemporary novelists, Nicola Lagioia has been the recipient of the Volponi, Straniero, and Viareggio awards. In 2015, he won the Strega Prize for Ferocity. He has been a jury member of the Venice Film Festival and is the program director of the Turin Book Fair.

One of Italy’s most critically acclaimed contemporary novelists, Nicola Lagioia has been the recipient of the Volponi, Straniero, and Viareggio awards. In 2015, he won the Strega Prize for Ferocity. He has been a jury member of the Venice Film Festival and is the program director of the Turin Book Fair.

ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Ann
Goldstein

Ann Goldstein has translated into English all of Elena Ferrante’s books, including The Story of the Lost Child, which was also shortlisted for the Booker International Prize. She has been honoured with a Guggenheim Fellowship and is the recipient of the PEN Renato Poggioli Translation Award. She lives in New York.

Ann Goldstein has translated into English all of Elena Ferrante’s books, including The Story of the Lost Child, which was also shortlisted for the Booker International Prize. She has been honoured with a Guggenheim Fellowship and is the recipient of the PEN Renato Poggioli Translation Award. She lives in New York.

NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

A brutal news story becomes for Lagioia the opportunity for a descent into the underworld of the soul of a city, Roma, and an era, ours, as well as into the depths of the author himself. Documentation and sensitivity are intertwined on the model of Capote, Carrère and many other who were able to question evil with the tools of language and literature.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Date published
09/09/2023
Country
Italy
Original Language
Italian
Publisher
Europa Editions
Translator
Ann Goldstein
Translation
Translated from the Italian
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