Arturo's Island — Elsa Morante

“Astonishing for the quality of the writing . . . the complexity of the invented world, the wide- ranging view of the human condition.” -- Elena Ferrante

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.