“I was struck straightaway by the singular force of her taut, meditative, sorrowful writing.” -- Jhumpa Lahiri
A diamond-sharp, Italian classic about the mysterious relationships between two partisan couples in German-occupied Italy in the wintry mountains of Piemonte
This hauntingly beautiful, sharply modern novel of WWII is perfect for fans of Tove Ditlevsen, Rachel Cusk, and Lucia Berlin
Translated into English for the first time, A Silence Shared is a captivating classic novel that inhabits the silent spaces between historic events, depicting the mysterious luminosity of human relationships in extraordinary circumstances.
In prose of subtle, enigmatic atmospheres and acutely precise images, Lalla Romano evokes both the tension and the stillness of life in occupied Italy.
Sheltering from the war in a provincial town outside of Turin, Giulia and her husband Stefano feel an instant affinity with Ada and Paolo: she a spontaneous, vibrant young woman, he a sickly intellectual, a teacher and partisan in hiding.
As the Germans begin to occupy Italy, a subtle dance of attractions between the couples begins, intensified by their shared isolation and the muffled hum of threat over a long, hard winter.
Industry Reviews
'Successful to the point of perfection. There's not a word, not a sentence in the novel that doesn't add to the refined music-verging on silence-that's so characteristic of [Romano]' - Giorgio Bassani, author of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
'Romano writes in a dreamlike present, which is to say the present that appears to us in dreams... clear and full of shadows, concrete and out of reach' - Natalia Ginzburg
'A subtle and captivating story, always right there... An incredibly complex and tough knot of human ties, [explored] with a heightened sensitivity that never falters' - Italo Calvino, author of If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
'I was struck straightaway by the singular force of her taut, meditative, sorrowful writing... I admired her concise sentences, brief chapters, and distilled language' - Jhumpa Lahiri, author of The Namesake
'A marvel. All silence and noticing, glimpses and wonder. I've not read anything quite like it before' - Sunjeev Sahota, Booker Prize-longlisted author of China Room