Arturo's Island

Elsa Morante's novels were once considered the greatest of Italy's postwar generation. Here, Ann Goldstein's 'deft translation' (Madeline Schwartz, New York Review of Books) of Arturo's Island heralds a 'second life' for the beloved author, finally garnering Morante 'the new readers she deserves' (Lily Tuck, Wall Street Journal). Imbued with a spectral grace, the novel follows the adolescent Arturo through his days on the isolated Neapolitan island of Procida, where--his mother long deceased, his father often absent, and a dog as his sole companion--he roams the countryside or reads in his family's lonely, dilapidated mansion. This quiet, meandering boyhood existence is existentially upended when his father brings home a beautiful sixteen- year- old bride, Nunziatella. A novel of thwarted desires, written with 'the power of malediction' (Dwight Garner, New York Times), Arturo's Island reemerges to take its rightful place in the world literary canon.