The Book of Homes

Finalist for the Strega Prize

"Bajani's episodic, nonlinear narrative traces one man’s memories and rites of passage through a series of northern Italian homes, from infancy in 1976 to 21st-century adulthood." -The Millions

"This lush narrative is a memorable tale of a man shaped by the walls around him." —Publishers Weekly

“Bajani is a genius, a first-rate inspector of domestic minutiae and the muted catastrophe of familial life . . . The Book of Homes is a wondrous and laudable book, full of containments and escapes.” —The Believer

"A real writer, a real artistic style, and a world in itself."—Mircea Cartarescu 

"Andrea Bajani, explores, as no one has done before him, that place in the world where we have discovered the most and loved the most, where we have been hurt the most and where, finally, we have become ourselves." —Sandro Veronesi

"Il libro delle case is a tough, illuminating investigation into finding other answers to the same question.  “Who are you?” we’re often asked. And we are also our homes." —Claudia Durastanti

"One of today's best and most versatile writers. With this new work, Andrea Bajani offers surprising and magnificent narrative images. Images that portrays the depths of pain, pleasure, tragedy, nostalgia or pure comedy and amazement typical of human beings."—Mercedes Monmany, ABC Culturàagrave;l

"The Book of Homes is the most original book I have read in the last twenty years. Although it is very understandable in its poetic and sweetness, the most receptive reader will be caught in a puzzle trap that is by no means simple: reconstructing the author's biography. At the same time, the author doubles as a reserved narrator and I, the literary hero. Sometimes the descriptions of the author's houses come with a blueprint copy. The name of the town or place where the house is located is often included, and the year in which the author stayed there is always indicated - but even these specific information are not enough to reconstruct author's real life. The book of houses represents a thinly concealed autobiography, in which the main role is given neither to the author nor to the ego, but to the houses, the living, all concrete spaces, which, mysteriously, the reader perceives as dreams." —Dubravka Ugrešić

"With Il libro delle case, Andrea Bajani recounts his "life as a man," and at the same time--by entering the homes that the narrative I lives in over the years--he captures the small and large upheavals (fears and burning desires, betrayed expectations and the longing for redemption) that pepper the inner life of each of us, that no one knows a thing about. Marriage, divorce, parents, children, escapes, returns, uprootings, unresolved conflicts with our loved ones. Al