Walkabout Literary Agency
Walkabout Literary Agency Rights list London Book Fair 2015 Fiction Ersi Sotiropoulus Philippe Forest Francesco Fioretti Marco Montemarano Tiziano Fratus Sandro Settimj Giulia Alberico Simona Baldelli Giacomo Verri Gabriella Ambrosio Fioly Bocca Marisa Salabelle Mario Prata Non Fiction Synghellakis -‐Tsipras _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com Rights: Worldwide except Greek. ERSI SOTIROPOULOS NOBEL PRIZE CANDIDATE 2013 Ersi Sotiropoulos, acclaimed Greek writer Ersi Sotiropoulos is the author of ten works of fiction and a book of poetry. Her novel Zigzag through the Bitter Orange Trees was the first novel ever to win both the Greek national prize for l i t e r a t u r e a n d G r e e c e ’ s p r e e m i n e n t b o o k c r i t i c s ’ a w a r d . S o t i r o p o u l o s ’ s o r i g i n a l i t y a n d e l e g a n t n a t u r a l s t y l e h a v e w o n h e r a u d i e n c e s i n m a n y languages, english, french, german, italian, spanish, swedish; she has been a fellow at the University of Iowa's International Writing Program, at Schloss Wiepersdorf in Germany, at Princeton University, as well as at numerous other programs around the world. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in English in the Literary Review, the Brooklyn Rail, Harvard Review, Circumference, S m o k e L o n g Q u a r t e r l y, W o r d s W i t h o u t B o r d e r s, Metamorphoses, Absinthe, and Two Lines. EVA – novel Patakis, (Greece) ATHENS ACADEMY PRIZE FOR BEST NOVEL 2011 FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2011 FINALIST FOR THE BOOK CRITICS’ AWARD 2011 "Sotiropoulos paints the reverse of the visible without any naivety. Without sentimentalism or excessive pathos, in an effective way she describes places, objects, Eva indecisions in addition to her thoughts, and this allows us to dive deep into the inner movements of her conscience. Dry style, poetic images, eroticism in filigree. " Le Monde _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com “Eva is a lesson in darkness. The party is finished, someone has switched off the light. Even so Ersi Sotiropoulos sees in the dark.” Le Monde “Echoes of Dostoevskian white nights, poetic drift, Eva, with his Lynchene scenes and his sonnambolic beauty, hatches the doors of an ordinarily invisible universe. (…) A fine enveloping and sensual nightmare, illimated by the incandescent Sotiropoulos language.” Les inrockuptibles “A virtuous sense of construction combined with an acute sight full of derision”. LivresHebdo “Sotiropoulos let us read about a world where frail people are forsaken, and where the deafening crysis blends with the comic and the poetic of an urban society of relegated people, a world entangled between Sam Shepard and Pedro Almodovar.” LePoint.fr “This is a tour-‐de-‐force first person narrative by the awarded author of Zigzag Through the Bitter Orange Trees.” Stratis Haviaras, novelist, founding editor of The Harvard Review On Christmas Eve, the incident of a snatched purse and the obsession of the victim, a young woman named Eva with the thief, after she has retrieved its contents. Somewhere in the distant background, there is and there isn’t a husband, a dying father in love with his nurse, and the mystery of a dead dog. This is Eva’s odyssey from a night club of alcohol and “substance abuse” to a furtive kiss in the toilets and out in the street and her acquaintance with the street woman Moira, who keeps warm by a makeshift fire and eventually leads her to the ill famed hotel, Parthenon. There, in a room kept by a certain Ramon, we meet Titika and Eddy and listen to an obsessive confession by the purse snatcher, who does not realize that Eva is his victim. The new day finds Eva returning home, and it’s Christmas Day, the end of a dubious flight, mostly within. Rights sold to: Stock, (France) – Ayrinti (Turkey) THREE DAYS IN PARIS – Patakis, Greece (December 2015) Constantine Cavafy, one of the most prominent Greek poets, had visited Paris very briefly in May 1897. There is very little information about this trip, his first and last to France. What did he do in Paris? Whom did he meet? What happened to him? From such fragmentary and scattered bits of information as exist, Ersi Sotiropoulos builds a fiction reconstructing those three “lost” days that Cavafy spent in Paris. Just a few days before Cavafy made the _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com trip to Paris with his older brother John, a terrible fire had broken out in the Paris bazaar, killing over 200 people. The city was still in shock. But there were other kinds of shock-‐ waves, too, reverberating through Paris just then. Already, in the last years of the nineteenth century, it was a mecca for the avant-‐garde, the place where Marcel Proust, Erik Satie and Edgar Degas were living and creating, where modernism was being born. Artists from all over the world were flocking to Montmartre. Alexandria, the town where he was living, with its feluccas and water vendors and decaying aristocracy, was a backwater in comparison, a provincial town still mired in the past. By 1897, Cavafy had accepted his homosexuality, though socially he was a very formal and old-‐fashioned person. But however tormented and secretive he may have been about his desire for other men, Cavafy was coming to a point in his development as a poet where he would be able to write about that desire openly, in an unapologetic, direct way, unifying his passion for the “Hellenic” civilization of the past and his passion for other men in poems that met his own rigorous standards for publication. Working on this novel Ersi Sotiropoulos arrives at two conclusions, each of them related to the importance of the year 1897 for Cavafy as both a poet and a person. First, it’s only after that date that he becomes the poet we know and admire. He abandons lyricism, shakes off the influence of Victor Hugo and Baudelaire, and develops his own distinctive voice, in which complex meanings are conveyed in bare, limpid form. The second concerns his private life. Although he was in the point of writing about his desire for other men before, 1897 is the year they first find direct expression, in tormented notes written in a cryptic language of his own about succumbing to those desires, whether in reality or in his imagination we don’t know. Each time he swears that he is not going to succumb again. From that point on, art and life will be impossible to dissociate in Cavafy. There is a poem of that period titled Half an Hour, one of the “hidden poems” that Cavafy refused to publish in his lifetime: But we who serve Art, sometimes with the mind’s intensity, can create—but of course only for a short time— pleasure that seems almost physical. That passage will serve as a sort of central thread for the novel. FICTION AND POETRY BOOKS PUBLISHED: 2011 FEEL BLUE, DRESS IN RED, stories National Book Award for best collection of stories 2012 Patakis, Greece 2009 EVA, novel Athens Academy Prize for best novel 2011 _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com Finalist for the National Book Award 2011 Finalist for the Book Critics’ Award 2011 Patakis, Greece 2011 Stock, France (2015) Ayrıntı, Turkey (2016) 2005 RAY IN THE DARKNESS, stories Finalist for the National Book Award 2006 Kedros, Greece as LANDSCAPE WITH DOG Clockroot Books, USA (2008) 2003 TAMING THE BEAST, novel Kedros, Greece Quidam éditeur, France (2011) 2001 BETWEEN 5 AND 7PM (Tra le cinque e le sette) with Italian sculptor Nunzio Edizioni del Tavolo Rosso, Italy 2000 THE WARM CIRCLE, stories & poems Ellinika Grammata, Greece 1999 ZIGZAG THROUGH THE BITTER-‐ORANGE TREES, novel National Book Award for best novel 2000 Book Critics’ Award for best novel 2000 Kedros Greece Dtv Germany (2001) Maurice Nadeau, France (2003) Interlink Books, USA (2007) 451 Editores, Spain (2008) Bokförlaget h:ström, Sweden (2009) Newton Compton, Italy (2012) republished by Metaixmio, Greece (2013) Ayrıntı, Turkey (2016) 1998 THE PINBALL KING, stories Kastaniotis, Greece French translation is available 1992 CAMELPIG, stories _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com Kedros, Greece 1991 BORDERS (Confini) with Italian sculptor Nunzio Galleria dell’Oca, Rome 1988 MEXICO, novel Kedros, Greece Donzelli, Italy (1994) expiring contract february 2014 French translation is available 1982 THE FARCE, novel Kedros, Greece republished by Patakis, Greece 2010 Spanish translation is due in 2014 1982 HOLIDAY WEEKEND IN YANNINA, novella Nefeli, Greece republished by Kedros, Greece (1999) French translation is available 1980 VACATION WITHOUT A CORPSE, novel Akmon, Greece republished by Kastaniotis, Greece (1997) 1980 APPLE+DEATH+…+…, poems, Plethron, Greece Praise for ZIGZAG THROUGH THE BITTER-‐ORANGE TREES (USA) «[A] darkly comic story told in four quirky voices...Increasingly intricate parallels and connections among the characters become political, cultural, outrageous and, ultimately, hopeful...Sotiropoulos describes shame and alienation so effectively that the narration feels voyeuristic – in a good way.» Publishers Weekly “Beautiful, evocative, deeply moving.» Martin Rubin, Los Angeles Times «The perfect gateway for the reader into a modern Greece where the classical hero is forgotten and “sits all alone in a yard, baking in the sun.” Part Marguerite Duras, part _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com Faulkner, with a dash of Fellini's Amarcord thrown in for comic spice, Ersi Sotiropoulos’s pungent novel will tug your heart and tease your intellect. Celebrate this writer’s long-‐ overdue first publication in America by reading her now.» Benjamin Anastas «If the last Greek literature you read came out 2,500 years ago, check out the dark comedy of Ersi Sotiropoulos, a household name in contemporary Greece who’s been publishing fierce work for the past 25 years.» Bust «Like a magical juggling act, a polyphonic, deftly elegant novel… Beautiful language (in an excellent translation), lyrical at times, and always poignant and precise.» Irini Spanidou «Before picking up Zigzag through the Bitter-‐Orange Trees, be forewarned. The book is irritating, scary, beautiful, and ugly. It makes you want to scratch your skin and take a shower. It makes you want to weep over the human condition. It makes you want to laugh. It is confusing, touching, and revolting. It is also brilliant… Sotiropoulos explores alienation and anxiety, with the danger of personal annihilation always near at hand… Sotiropoulos can be unnerving, but she writes with the pen of a poet, and limns, with great delicacy, feelings just under the surface. » Penelope Karageorge, Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora «What a pleasure to have Ersi Sotiropoulos in English at last. Zigzag through the Bitter-‐ Orange Trees is vibrant and tart and a delight to read.» Lynn Freed «Zigzag is a freewheeling exercise in absurdity as told by the voices of a quartet of characters...It is Sotiropoulos’s great distinction that she can unfold the events of Zigzag suspensefully, with each page a surprise for the reader...the work of an imaginative writer of genius.» The Compulsive Reader _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com Rights: German, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Danish, Dutch, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese and Turkish PHILIPPE FOREST Philippe Forest, born in Paris in 1962, is professor of literature and author of numerous essays on art and literature and novels (published in France by Gallimard). After the untimely death of his daughter, he began to write fiction. His novels revisit in multiple way the painful mourning. He has been awarded the First Novel Prix Femina (1997) and the Prix Déce m bre (2004), and also he received the Premio Grinzane Cavour (Italy) and the Grand Prix Littéraire De L’académie De Bretagne Et Des Pays De La Loire. His works have been translated into English, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. He is teaching at several Universities, including Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Saint-‐ Andrews, and the University of Nantes. SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT (LE CHAT DE SCHRÖDINGER) (GALLIMARD 2013) Click here to see an interview with Philippe Forest Schrödinger's cat, which gives its title to this novel by Philippe Forest, is a thought experiment, a picture, a fable, whose objective is to illustrate, metaphorically, a scientific theory too abstract to be pictured by human mind: a cat is locked in a box with an atom in an unstable state. If the atom decays, an evaporation device triggers a poison that will kill the cat. In fact, as we have not opened the box, the cat can be considered dead and _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com alive at the same time. Philippe Forest uses this experience as the starting point of his novel. I n the night, the n arrator sees a cat that will s pend a year w ith him before disappearing. This cat, both dead and alive, allows him to start thinking about the relationship of man with reality but also -‐ and especially -‐ with everything that could have occurred if our choices were different. A poetic journey in all parallel lives we could live, in order to conjure childhood, destiny, memory, desire or grief. 368 pages Rights sold: China (Seaskj 2014), Italy (Del Vecchio editore 2014) FRENCH AND ITALIAN PRAISES "A disconcerting novel. A cat that leads the redars to the most fundamental questions. " Le Figaro littéraire "The Forest’s novel is a long run of poetic accents that invites the reader to wonder about what is fiction and what is reality." La Quinzaine littéraire "It is the novel of a funambolist who does not try to reach any virtue, but that oscillates between light and shadow, humor and melancholy, dialogues and poetic prose." Le Nouvel Observateur "A novel of extraordinary freedom." Les Inrockuptibles "An endless and disconcerting journey; a radical meditation on the last things of life." La Repubblica "The ability of the French writer is to keep the story perpetually poised between the maximum rationality and madness." La Repubblica "A wonderful quantic novel". Corriere della Sera “Schrödinger's cat is the best novel of Forest, it’s a magnificent metaphor of human condition.(…) A portentous and poetic fantasy, at the same time logical, paradoxical and humorous. Memoir and fiction, a philosophical and autobiographical tale, it is a lucid narration about loneliness, about shadows, about the dark and the BigBang." Il Giornale “A wandering imagination that brings Forest to that obscure point (the untimely death of her daughter) from which builds his entire career as a writer.” Il Manifesto _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com Rights: Wordwide FRANCESCO FIORETTI (THE DARK FOREST. THE GREAT NOVEL OF THE INFERNO) LA SELVA OSCURA. IL GRANDE ROMANZO DELL’INFERNO (RIZZOLI 2015) From the bestselling author of Il libro segreto di Dante and Il quadro segreto di Caravaggio, 500.000 copies sold. With the energy and refined style of a skilled storyteller, Francesco Fioretti leads us into Dante's Inferno on the most astonishing trip of all time, a journey that will reveal to the reader the torments of hell. Round and round, circle after circle, the Inferno is disclosed with its puzzles and its depths, in an ambitious project: for the first time a writer "rewrites" Dante's Inferno in modern prose without reducing or simplifying the content, even though Fioretti manages to untie the conceptual knots, explaining where matter has dark meanings. Reading The Dark Forest readers can enjoy one of the greatest masterpieces of all time as a contemporary novel, discovering the extraordinary modernity of Divina Commedia. This ambitious project is comparable to Italo Calvino's Orlando Furioso, Alessandro Baricco's Iliad, Aldo Busi's Decameron and Valerio Massimo Manfredi's Odyssey. Pages 320 Rights sold : Hungary (Typotex) – Book club edition (Mondolibri – Italy) THE DARK FOREST PRESS: A fictional rewriting of the "Divine Comedy": the narrative that takes hold, even from the point of view of language, the style of the Florentine poet, making it however a read-‐ accessible to the average reader." Corriere della Sera "An extraordinary adventure. Fioretti allows the reader to enter easily into the original power of the poem. A book for everyone who helps the circulation of Dante's masterpiece, showing how, after seven centuries, passions, weaknesses and implications of the human soul remain mysterious and universal. Without place and time.” La Repubblica "A good example of what used to be called intelligent disclosure". Il Sole 24 ore "Beautiful as a novel, an enjoyable book, useful as invitation to read the original masterpiece." Famiglia Cristiana _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com FRANCESCO FIORETTI (1960) is a Professor of Italian literature; in 2012 he gained a doctorate at the University of Eichstätt in Germany, with a thesis on the Stilnovo of Dante and Cavalcanti, published by Aracne, 2012. Il libro segreto di Dante, his first novel published in 2011, received very good reviews, shot up the Italian bestseller lists, and stayed there for months. Il quadro segreto di Caravaggio and La profezia di Dante were published by Newton Compton in 2012 and 2013. Il libro segreto di Dante : TRANSLATION RIGHTS SOLD TO: SUMA DE LETRAS (SPAIN) • EVRO GIUNTI (SERBIA) EVORA (BRAZIL) REBIS (POLAND) • ZBOOKA (RUSSIA) • LITTLE SEED BOOKS (KOREA) HC EDITIONS (FRANCE) _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com FRANCESCO FIORETTI LA PROFEZIA DI DANTE (DANTE'S PROPHECY) (NEWTON COMPTON 2013) «The young detective Alighieri improvise on an exciting investigation.» La Repubblica « Page after page Fioretti immerses the reader in the Florence of Dante where the Guelphs and Ghibellines fight and spreading the craze of who buys and sells money, speculating on interest rates.» Corriere della Sera WHO PUT END TO THE LOVE OF TWO UNLUCKY LOVERS? From the bestselling author of Il libro segreto di Dante and Il quadro segreto di Caravaggio, 500.000 copies sold. The eighteen-‐year-‐old Dante falls in love with Beatrice, but she is betrothed to Ser Mone dei Bardi. Their feelings for each other could be dangerous. So to distract him from his insane passion, his friend Guido Cavalcanti persuades him to go with him to Bologna to hear the lectures of the Florentine Aristotelian Taddeo Alderotti. But when they arrive, Malatesta da Verrucchio, the lord of Rimini, sends for them in great secrecy. When they get to Rimini, he shows them two corpses embraced in rigor mortis: they are Paolo e Francesca, transfixed by a single sword thrust. They are thought to have been murdered by Gianciotto, Francesca’s husband and Paolo’s elder brother. But Gianciotto, the governor of Pesaro, knows nothing about it. So Malatesta urges Cavalcanti, for the sake of his old friendship with Paolo, to make inquiries in Florence. Paolo, when he was Captain of the People in Florence, had had close ties to some Florentine bankers linked to the Cerchi and the Portinari. Who in Florence could have wanted him and Francesca dead? Will Guido and Dante be able to solve the mystery that linked Paolo to Florence, and which is perhaps the reason for his tragic death? 288 Pages FRANCESCO FIORETTI IL QUADRO SEGRETO DI CARAVAGGIO (CARAVAGGIO’S SECRET PICTURE) (NEWTON COMPTON 2012) «Through the story of the artist, the reader plunges in a murky atmosphere of the city of the Popes, divided among a thousand of factions, a thousand of powers, the war between Spanish and French, betrayals of court, challenges and corruption.» Corriere della Sera _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com «Fioretti plays its cards on the many historical theories that led Caravaggio to paint his masterpieces, unravel mysteries of the court, dusts figures existed and maneuver the fantasy until a final crackling.» TTL – La Stampa «Excellent writing and a historical setting rebuilt with passion.» Il Venerdì di Repubblica A MYSTERIOUS SERIAL KILLER IS AT LARGE IN CARAVAGGIO’S ROME BUT HIS IDENTITY WILL BE REVEALED BY A PAINTING... Rome, 1604. In the sombre atmosphere of the Counter-‐Reformation, more and more artists paint dramatic scenes encircled with darkness. Caravaggio often uses models from poor backgrounds for his paintings. One day Anna Bianchini, a prostitute who has posed for him, is found dead in her bed by her friend Fillide, another courtesan who has modelled for him. Caravaggio goes round to Anna’s house and paints the two women one last time in THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN: Anna is the dead Madonna and Fillide the grieving Mary Magdalene at her bedside. The painting, completed in 1606, causes a scandal and is rejected by the church of Santa Maria della Scala. But all Caravaggio’s models now seem to be in peril of their lives: an attempt is made to kill Fillide too, and the artist is worried about his mistress Lena Antognetti, another former prostitute. The investigations lead to an official at the papal court, the patron of the DEATH OF THE VIRGIN, a religious fanatic and strict moralist. The painter denounces him by including him in that painting as a figure standing provocatively in the background. But when Caravaggio discovers the true motive for the murders, he is forced to leave Rome, and cannot save Lena, the woman he loves... 320 pages FRANCESCO FIORETTI was born in Lanciano, in Abruzzo, in 1960. He’s a Italian literature professor, in 2012 he got a doctorate at the University of Eichstätt in Germany, with a thesis on the Stilnovo of Dante and Cavalcanti, published by Aracne, 2012. His first book for Newton Compton, published in 2011, was Il libro segreto di Dante. It received good reviews, shot up the Italian bestseller lists, and stayed there for months. The translation rights have been sold in seven countries. In 2012 he published, also with Newton Compton, Il quadro segreto di Caravaggio and La profezia di Dante. With Rizzoli in 2015 he published The dark forest. The great novel of the Inferno, a rewriting in modern prose of Dante's Inferno. Il libro segreto di Dante : TRANSLATION RIGHTS SOLD TO: SUMA DE LETRAS (SPAIN) • EVRO GIUNTI (SERBIA) EVORA (BRAZIL) REBIS (POLAND) • ZBOOKA (RUSSIA) • LITTLE SEED BOOKS (KOREA) HC EDITIONS (FRANCE) _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com Rights: Worldwide MARCO MONTEMARANO UN SOLO ESSERE (ONE BEING) (NERI POZZA -‐ May 2015) The new novel by Marco Montemarano the ‘Neri Pozza Prize’ winner (2013). Literary Fiction An intense novel inspired by a true story that the author turns into an extraordinary existential parable. A mature and ambitious novel that reminds of Javier Cercas's style and his ability to reconstruct historical events. The life of German professor Alexander seems to flow smoothly until Massimo, a young researcher from Rome, and Natalia, a PhD student from Abruzzo, burst into his life. With the two young researchers Alexander is no longer able to hide its origins. The German professor is not from Germany and very soon a dark shadow from his past emerges. One night Natalia’s boyfriend is found dead on the street of Erlangen, he appears to have been killed for no apparent reason. After the discovery of the corpse, Natalia decides to quit her PhD and go back to Italy. Alexander's life falls apart. He starts avoiding people and withdraws into himself. From his past appears what he calls a ‘wreckage island’. The second part of the novel is a story of emigration. It is the story of a familiy workers from Abruzzo -‐ Alexander's family -‐ emigrated to Austria in the early seventies. Soon, the reader will discover the secret bond between the crime of Erlangen and Alexander's buried childhood trauma. A descent into the underworld in which the main character will guide the reader through his guilts and painful memories. “LA RICCHEZZA” PRESS: “Thanks to an essential style of writing and a good deal of narrative talent, fragmented memories are recomposed in a comprehensive picture and reality appears in a different light, and at the end, surprising.” La Repubblica “The transience of youth, deception of memory and of the identity considered unassailable: these are the themes of Montemarano, addressed in a brought and essential style.” Corriere della Sera “La ricchezza is a fitzgeraldian novel with a witness-‐protagonist who tells us the story of a golden age that falls, a story in which physical beauty at the beginning seduces but over time more often isolate.” Il Sole 24 ore _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com “Montemarano reappropriates the past with security and seems to say to each page that working to the construction of the identity is an endless effort and you run the risk to undermine the principle of reality.” Venerdì di Repubblica Marco Montemarano was born in Milan and grew up in Rome. He has been living in Germany for over twenty years. He works as a journalist and translator in Munich. He is a musician and composes music for films and documentaries. His latest album, The Art of Solo Guitar, was produced by the record label Roba di Hamburg. His first novel La ricchezza won The Neri Pozza Prize in 2013. His website is: www.marcomontemarano.de _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com MARCO MONTEMARANO LA RICCHEZZA (THE WEALTH) (NERI POZZA 2013) The Neri Pozza Prize 2013 Literary Fiction WITH HIS DRY AND MATURE WRITING, LA RICCHEZZA IS A NOVEL ABOUT THE “BEST YOUTH” OF THE 70s. “Thanks to an essential style of writing and a good deal of narrative talent, fragmented memories are recomposed in a comprehensive picture and reality appears in a different light, and at the end, surprising.” La Repubblica “The transience of youth, deception of memory and of the identity considered unassailable: these are the themes of Montemarano, addressed in a brought and essential style.” Corriere della Sera “La ricchezza is a fitzgeraldian novel with a witness-‐protagonist who tells us the story of a golden age that falls, a story in which physical beauty at the beginning seduces but over time more often isolate.” Il Sole 24 ore “Montemarano reappropriates the past with security and seems to say to each page that working to the construction of the identity is an endless effort and you run the risk to undermine the principle of reality.” Venerdì di Repubblica Giovanni , motherless son, lives a sort of adolescence "by proxy". His life is polarized and nullified by the contrasting personalities of his two best friends, Fabrizio and Mario Pedrotti , sons of a powerful politician . The two brothers are unable to communicate each other for years and they will use him as a medium. Giovanni, called Hitchcock by his friends , has the privilege of being welcomed into the inner circle of the family Pedrotti . Apparently he is one of them , but he really is, and always will be , the only witness of their uttered lives. Giovanni will access to the secrets of the family . He will know the subtle physical torture that Fabrizio , the charming boy admired by all, deals to the brother since childhood. He will fall in love with the sister of Fabrizio and Mario, Maddalena, who will grant the privilege to sneak like a thief in her room. With the death of the Honorable Pedrotti everything changes. Maddalena moves to South America. Giovanni goes to live in Ireland and then Germany . He forget everything , at least _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com in appearance. But two decades after the past erupts in his life and subverts it. He painfully proceeds along a path of reconstruction of his fragmented memory . Pages 272 Marco Montemarano was born in Milan and grew up in Rome. He lives in Germany for over twenty years. He works as a journalist and translator in Munich. He is a musician and composes music for films and documentaries. His latest musical album, The Art of Solo Guitar, is coming out in the music publishing Roba di Hamburg. His first novel La ricchezza won The Neri Pozza Prize in 2013. His website is: www.marcomontemarano.de _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com Rights: Worldwide TIZIANO FRATUS L’ITALIA È UN BOSCO (ITALY IS A FOREST) (Laterza 2014) STORIES OF THE LARGE TREES WITH ROOTS AND SOME FROND This book is an invitation to stop and lose oneself among the many forests and parks of Italy, to let go in front of the strong wind. The huge trunks of the redwoods in Northern Italy. The aerial roots of ficus that dominate Palermo. The light through the leaves of the oldest conifers in the Alps. Primary forest of holm Europe's largest in Sardinia. The chestnut and elm trees of the forests of the Apennines. The rarities that have adapted to the climate and compact size of the botanical gardens. But also the stunned Giants that inhabit urban parks and decorate the avenues and streets, squares and public gardens of our crowded cities. Tiziano Fratus through all these places "where to go to waste time and collect wonderful," and leads us, as a passionate Virgil of our time, to recognize the diversity of species, to distinguish shapes and colors leaves geometries, to reconstruct the stories of the oldest trees that inhabit our country. Pages 220 “L’ITALIA È UN BOSCO” PRESS: “Phenomenology's pills of our forests, or even better, of alberografia: the research, the study and the description of the big trees.” La Repubblica "Loving the ancient trees is for Tiziano Fratus a philosophy." La Stampa “A recap wide and brim of his hunger for life.” Il Sole 24 ore “A kind of tourism of roots and creatures without boundaries.” Corriere della Sera “The seeker of trees does a journey, first of all in the humility that should show the man towards nature.” L'Espresso Tiziano Fratus. Having Travelled in Europe, Asia and North America Tiziano Fratus (Bergamo, 1975) has coined the concepts of 'Homo Radix' and 'alberografia' that provided inspiration for his books, photographic exhibitions, itineraries around the world and his _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com weekly column “The seeker of trees” published on the Italian newspaper "La Stampa". Among his books are Il Libro delle Foreste Scolpite (april 2015) and L’Italia è un bosco (Laterza), Manuale del perfetto cercatore d’alberi (Feltrinelli), Il sussurro degli alberi (Ediciclo), Vecchi e grandi alberi di Torino (Fusta/LaStampa) and the children's illustrated book Ci vuole un albero (Araba Fenice). His poems have been translated in eight languages and appeared on international journals such as "Los Angeles Review," "Gradiva," "Tabacaria," "Poetry International", "Ars Poetica," "Of Versos", "Les Citadelles ". In Italy he has published collections of poems: Un quaderno di radici (Feltrinelli Zoom), Il molosso, Nuova Poesia Creaturale, Gli scorpioni delle Langhe, Creaturing. Selected Poems, Double Skin, Poèmes chuchotés sur la berge du Po. For three years Fratus has been involved in the project Giona delle sequoie that took him to California to discover some of the tallest and long lived trees on the planet. His website is: www.homoradix.com _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com Rights: Worlwide SANDRO SETTIMJ PER QUANTO MI RIGUARDA SONO SEMPRE INNAMORATO (AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED I’M ALWAYS IN LOVE) (Mondadori -‐ October 2014) Commercial fiction: AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED I’M ALWAYS IN LOVE IS A SENTIMENTAL BILDUNGSROMAN, WRITTEN WITH A SENSE HUMOR THAT RECALLS OF THE EARLY WOODY ALLEN MOVIES OR THE NOVELS BY DIEGO DE SILVA. Ugo loves women. The problem is that he does not understand them. He is an eternal student who spend the time in his basement daydreaming romantic encounters with idealized women from the fairy tales. But in real life, he only meets silly, empty women who disappoint him. When, after graduation he finally decides to leave his city in search of better fortune, Ugo finds himself in a reality only apparently different from the one he has left home. What lies behind an attractive girl smile? What is there behind her seductive eyes? Is there a fawn-‐eyed girl or an experienced seductress? Ugo does not know it and his attempts to seduce women are always a disaster. And his love affairs always end up with a goodbye or a slamming door. The women run into his life as the end credits of a movie. Until the day when a girl breaks his heart. Many readers will identify with Ugo's vulnerability. He is a victim of his own delusions and frustrations. Pages 261 Rights sold to: Turkey (Eksik Parça Yayınları) “PER QUANTO MI RIGUARDA SONO SEMPRE INNAMORATO” PRESS: "With funny style and very suitable for a television transposition (the trend is Tutti matti per amore) Settimj sketches out a captivating plot." La Repubblica "The Sandro Settimj novel discovered thanks to a starting effect". Venerdì di Republica “In this journey, that is Hugo's life we attend to his personal growth, from boy to grown man. But he will not stop from believing in fairy tales." Panorama _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com "A stunning novel with a wonderful title. It talk about love from the point of view of a unrepentant and clumsy suitor, narrated with subtle humor. " Donna Moderna “If Bridget Jones in her diary recounted the adventures of girls looking for boyfriend and their lost self-‐esteem, Ugo, main character of the novel, an absolutely incompetent men in terms of feelings, does a parable that is a real apprenticeship of love. "Metro "The novel hits the target showing the unusual side of a contemporary boy narrated from a very original point of view and where the irony is a weapon of survival." Vero "A debut of a brave man because he talk about feelings and not (only) about sex, for all those who know the value of the nuances and do not give up on dreaming." Radio 105 "A burst of (intelligent) laughs and sentimental and enlightening reflections ." Marie Claire "A tragicomic novel about love, sex and the differences in approach between men and women." Style.it "As a new Woody Allen in Rome (...) we laught with grace, intelligence and humor, things of which is good to keep spare in the bookshops these days.” Il Cittadino Sandro Settimj is 50 years old and works as a writer for RAI; he writes TV scripts and screenplays. In the past, after a degree in languages, he decided to work as a teacher and entertainer at Holiday camps across the world. This is his first novel. _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com Rights: Worldwide GIULIA ALBERICO UN AMORE SBAGLIATO (A WRONG LOVE) (SONZOGNO -‐ february 2015) Commercial Fiction After betraying her husband, Lea finds out that her new lover is in love with a man. The classic romantic triangle, with some unexpected side. A Wrong Love is a surprisingly and delicate portrait full of grace that leads us through paths of deep femininity. A female and intimate novel, told with a poetic writing, that reveals the heart of women and the fatigue of supporting a cruel and ironic fate. Giulia Alberico is an author with a brilliant style of writing and a strong psychological sensitivity. When you think your life is headed toward a quiet and boring maturity, something unexpected happens. Love knocks at your door. This must have thought Lea, the protagonist of A Wrong Love. The relationship with Stefano, always busy university professor, is slowly fading after the first few years of living together happily. When Lea met Marco feels immediately upset, between senses of guilt and self-‐irony, she slowly surrenders to her feelings. Even when Marco confesses her to have a long relationship with a young man, who loves and who cares about, Lea fantastic to find a place in this bizarre love's polygon. But it can not work. At some time, everything suddenly seems to collapse and Lea is alone to face a world of dilemmas. And she'll have to take a decision that will change her life. Pages 125 “A WRONG LOVE” PRESS: Introspective and psychological writer, Giulia Alberico is highly descriptive when sweep places, moods and emotions of his characters. Impossible not to find our own life!" IL TEMPO "The complex geometry of relationships eventually discarded, and when all seems lost something unexpected happens. Something that is called life." IL FOGLIO "With her style full of grace and refinement Giulia Alberico continues to explore the women's world with strength and irony telling their everyday life and their feelings. She masterfully does it in his latest novel." GAZZETTA DI PARMA "Giulia Alberico writes so brilliant, deep and credible and with her last novel, goes straight to the heart." CONVENZIONALI _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com Rights: Worldwide GIULIA ALBERICO MADRIGALE (MADRIGAL) Sellerio (1999) A BOOK WHICH TOUCHES AND ENRICHES OUR HEARTS AND MAKES ITS MARK ON THE READER. MADRIGALE is composed of three fascinating short stories: The house of 1908, Donna Ortensia and Regina. The first story is a family saga with the house itself as the narrator. It leads the reader through the story of its life, its transformations, its relation with the people that ,over the time, built, lived and inherited it. The story echoes personalities, conflicts, troubles, arrivals and departures, celebrations and mourning events, sounds and flavours. Donna Ortensia, a spinster, is the main character of the second story which suggests the drama of old age, loneliness and sorrow for the decline of life. The n a r r a t i v e i s l i g h t e n e d b y v e i l e d i r o n y a n d s l i g h t touches of humour. The confrontational relation between a mother and her daughter is the passionate theme of the third story, with a sequence of touching, complex situations. The book is not a mere report of events and description of people but it is the result of research and commitment . It brings to self-‐discovery and knowledge of the world and helps to understand reality. A challenging, moving book, original in its plots and style, written in a clear, brilliant language. Pages 260 “MADRIGAL” PRESS: An admirable and calibrated writing, so ironic how incisive». Giuseppe Pontiggia "A dry prose, never digressive and even decided to advance slowly, almost wanting to evoke a slowness of things, a desire to stop time." Mario Baudino, La Stampa "An author Italian who has much to say about the world of women” Grazia "A write more and more intense, polished by the linguistic sensibility that is a feature of the writing of Julia Alberico." Donna Moderna _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com Rights: Worldwide IL GIOCO DELLA SORTE – THE GAME OF CHANCE GIULIA ALBERICO (SELLERIO 2002) To write to defeat oblivion. To write to defeat time and, at the same time, discover that after all "time is circular and always retraces its steps, but men are almost always unaware of this cycle", "it comes back and men do not notice it, do not understand". This is the core argument of the novel "The game of chance". The narrative structure is at the same time composite and choral. Three brothers (Ignazio, Agnese and Delia Herrera) and their governess recall events of their lives, the life of a provincial upper class family. Simple events, even banal at times, which draw the reader into a fatally inevitable roundabout: "the circle closes -‐ Ignazio says -‐ years link up and I perceive a round, warm thing full of wind and sea smell, and this is my life, now I know". This same perception of a reassuring, inevitable circularity of time and life impregnates his sister Delia's words: "my imagination fancied my years to come as a perfect circle. And into that circle, with the skill and lightness of an acrobat, I took to flight". Ignazio, Adventurous, Greedy taste for life; Delia, Strangeness, Intemperance, Lightness; and finally, Agnese, Solitude, Autarky, Gloom. Three brothers, different but linked by a strong bond defeating time and space, three lonely characters locked in their roles come together in their old age to recompose their lives in a unity. The circularity of time and the inevitability of roles are the focal points of this writing that finds its raison d'étre in the need to defeat oblivion and recompose the flow of time in an order, a peaceful answer to man's eternal quest for the meaning of life. 180 pages RIGHTS SOLD: Editora Record (BRAZIL) Rights: Worldwide GIULIA ALBERICO COME SHEHERAZADE (LIKE SHEHERAZADE) (RIZZOLI 2004) Giuditta and Federico have been married for twenty years. Their old time passion has faded away but their bond is still strong. One day Giuditta's routine life is broken by Luca's arrival and she yields to a new love. At first the two lovers are happy and enjoy their most beautiful moments in Sabaudia, near Rome, in a villa they choose as a 'buen retiro'. There Giuditta becomes Sheherazade: she spins her web of tales for the man she loves, fills up the rooms with the sound of her words, animates every corner of the house and the heart. However, _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com the strange balance this double life is based on breaks up when Giuditta perceives a change in Luca. She would like to know and understand what it is about but Luca minimizes, disappears, reappears and then breaks off their relationship confessing he has another woman. Giuditta is heartbroken and tormented with the still pungent recollection of his words and the emptiness of the present which leave her no way out. All her efforts to win his love again are in vain and she then sinks into an agony that eats her inside and outside. Her life is a continuing seesaw between recovery and fall and she finds herself alone. She now perceives that her scar is not healing because her wound is opening up a bigger sore. Luca comes back a year later and asks Giuditta to meet her at the villa. He wants her to be his Sheherazade again and Giuditta promises to tell him the most beautiful tale, the one of their story. Like the heroine who eludes death by telling the fantastic tales of the Thousand and One Nights Giuditta turns master of her fate through words and describes her love through dreams, memories, fantasies, passions. Like Sherazade she is ready to accept her destiny whose end though, with a stage-‐trick, will be chosen by her and not forced on her. In fact the last words of the tale, which are addressed to the half-‐asleep Luca, reveal that before recounting the tales she offered him a cup of poisoned coffee. Giuditta has therefore -‐in her own way-‐ effected a nemesis. Giulia Alberico's work is an involving, biting, sweet and sour novel you read all in one but she, Giuditta-‐Sheherazade, will continue to spin her web of stories out of the written page, deep and straight to the heart of life. Pages 200 GIULIA ALBERICO IL VENTO CALDO DEL GARBINO (THE WARM GARBINO WIND) (MONDADORI 2007) In a village on the Adriatic coast, very close to the sea, there is a small block of flats with a big garden. When summer comes, the window shutters reopen one by one like eyes opening wide after the winter lethargy, and the house at via Orientale, 18 comes back to life. Apart from a retired admiral, who is full of memories and a bit of a philosopher, those who move around, dream, and suffer in the rooms in Via Orientale are all women. and have already gone through important years of their lives and up to this moment. Up to this still and hot August, each of them has rubbed along with that stubbornness and passion the female soul is capable of. But one morning, as sudden and ultimate as only nature can be, there comes the Garbino, a warm enervating wind pervading every space, giving no respite till the moment when, with violent tornado, it melts into a liberating _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com rain and finally abates. On the surface, nothing remarkable occurs during the three days of the Garbino, and yet all the dwellers end up with coming to terms with their own secrets, dreams, and silence. Since, as the scorching Garbino air clashes with the cold northern air, "also in the hearts of human beings there is a place where words, feelings, the heat and coldness of passions, the fury of wrath and the desperate willingness to overcome it all get clogged". There is a tornado of grief, a deafening roar of madness, but in the end, in that fresh and intoxicating atmosphere after a storm, "everything has an end, the sky is cloudless again". With such delicacy capable of touching even the most intricate knots of the soul, and with narrative skill peculiar to great story-‐tellers, Giulia Alberico gives us a novel which is both intimate and at the same time close to our own hearts, thus giving voice to a female universe made of slight gestures, little swerves concealing great, breath-‐taking passions. Pages 152 Giulia Alberico was born in San Vito Chietino in 1949, after studying Classics Literature in Rome. She is a teacher since 1974. She is the author of Cuanta Pasion (Mondadori, 2009), The warm wind of Garbino (Mondadori 2007), Like Sheherazade (Rizzoli, 2004), Madrigal (Sellerio 1999) Arturo Loria Award 2000. The game of fate (Sellerio 2002), and also The Kind Body, Conversation with Massimo Girotti (Sossella 2003), The books are shy (Filema 2007) Petrosa Tower Prize, 2008. _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com Rights: Worldwide Literary Fiction SIMONA BALDELLI IL TEMPO BAMBINO (CHILD TIME) (Giunti -‐ 2014) “One of the 10 best novels of 2014.” PANORAMA From the author of Evelina e le fate, a surprising novel that take us into a world of lost and recovered times, ghosts and dreams. After the successful debut of Evelina e le fate, Simona Baldelli returns with a delicate and disturbing novel, whose protagonist Mr. Thursday repairs and rebuilds clocks and has just discovered he's getting shorter by the day. Mr. Thursday has a terror of the dark and has a profound fear of his mother' shadow. There is also Regina, a little girl who would like to look more grown up. Regina's afraid of salad and she's never tasted bread, butter or sugar. She has painted nails. For Mr. Thursday time has passed so slowly that he has never really become adult while for Regina time does not run fast enough: she would like it to run faster. One day Regina and Mr. Thursday meet in a space inhabited by shadows and dreams, desires and fantasies, belonging not to the time we know, in a different time that is not made of hours, minutes and seconds. It is the baby time. Simona Baldelli’s second novel shows her talent and her ability to build parallel worlds that reflect and multiply our present. A mature novel of strong emotional intensity that confirms Simona Baldelli as one of the most talented writers in Italy. Pages 240 SIMONA BALDELLI EVELINA E LE FATE (EVELINA AND THE FAIRIES) (GIUNTI 2013) Literary Fiction AN ASTONISHING NOVEL THAT CONNECTS THE THREADS OF HISTORY TO THOSE OF A LITTLE GIRL'S FANTASY WORLD, ON A FARM IN THE ITALIAN COUNTRYSIDE. The novel opens with a memorable scene, the arrival of evacuees during the second world war. To Evelina it seems that the souls of the dead are coming out from the snow. The child sees two fairies: the Black, with dark traits, and the Scepa, the cheerful fairy, colorful, with a floral dress, always laughing. _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com The partisans are camped around the house in the country: their leader, The Toscan, has obtained food from Evelina’s father, who sympathizes with them. Evelina and her brothers, Sergio and Maria one day find the corpse of a German killed by partisans: the Black makes them run away and hide moments before the Germans arrived. In a relentless succession of twists, on the hills behind Pesaro, the last year of the Second World War is filtered through the magic eyes of childhood, and includes Evelina’s whole family and the secret of a Jewish girl hidden under a trapdoor in the barn. Magic and reality are blended, reviving the rural world and the fairy tales, the complex plot of civil and world war. The essential style, enriched with dialect expressions, makes the story more real: magic words, nursery rhymes, which open the door to dreams or prophecy. Pages. 260 “EVELINA E LE FATE” PRESS: “The surprising debut novel from Simona Baldelli is a magic book and not for the presence of the fairies, but for her natural style of writing that manages to blend real life and traditions, suffering and true stories, little moments of joy and absolute agony. " Alessandra Rota, La Repubblica A magical story, full of tenderness and mystery. A poetic and rhythmic novel, suspended between pain and redemption, between fear and strength that serves to undermine them." Paolo Di Paolo, L'Unità Rights sold: Spain (Roca Editorial) Simona Baldelli was born in Pesaro and lives in Rome. For her first novel, Evelina e le fate, she was shortlisted at Calvino Prize 2012 and she won the John Fante Debut Novel Award 2013. Her novels have received great critical acclaim. _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagen cy.com Rights: Worldwide GIACOMO VERRI PARTIGIANO INVERNO (PARTISAN WINTER) (NUTRIMENTI 2012) Shortlisted for the Calvino Prize 2011 A little boy in love, a restless young man, a retired professor, quiet and disorientated: three generations compared to the abyss of history, in a striking reinterpretation of the Italian Resistance. With an original expressionist style of writing, Giacomo Verri tells the story of the liberation war, seventy years after the events, in a vivid portrayal of the terrible suffering that afflicted a nation. The novel takes place during the days of Advent in 1943. There is a battle in Varallo between partisans and fascists that marks the start of the Resistance's armed struggle in Valsesia. Jacopo Preti belongs to the rebel group camped in the snowy countryside of Briasco; he has left his studies in the city and he has also left his beloved Flora to join the group of partisans, whose commander is called Cino. Down in the valley Umberto Dedali, who is ten years old and lives with his grandfather, dreams of joining the bearded men in the mountains and of seducing the beautiful Maria with whom he's fallen in love. His grandfather's brother, Italo Trabucco, is a retired teacher and he's returned to Borgosesia da Vercelli because of the war. One day the teacher is arrested for no apparent reason and tortured with ten other people but, by a stroke of luck, he's left out of the group of ten that will be shot. Partigiano inverno presents the partisan resistance, not as a great event that changed the course of history, but as a paradigm of every trauma that interrupts daily life, burning and wounding. Giacomo Verri's style of writing is labyrinthine and sensuous, a new style that recalls Dante and Homer, as well as Fenoglio, Gadda and Calvino. Pages 240 “PARTIGIANO INVERNO” PRESS: "A style with echoes of Pavese and Fenoglio, a novel of remarkable originality also stylistic, shortlisted for the Calvino Prize". Famiglia Cristiana “A lyrical language that draws something from the classic literature of the Resistance such as Fenoglio and Calvino but also from the inventions of Gadda and Gabriel García Márquez, as well as from the great tradition of the epic Renaissance.” Il Foglio “Giacomo Verri is able to surprise and to move readers”. Internazionale “One of the literary revelations of 2012”. Rolling Stone Giacomo Verri was born in Borgosesia in 1978. He's a teacher and a literary magazines contributer. Partigiano inverno is his first novel, shortlisted for the Italo Calvino Prize in 2011. _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com Rights: Worldwide GABRIELLA AMBROSIO PRIMA DI LASCIARSI (BEFORE WE SAY GOODBYE) (NUTRIMENTI 2012) BASED ON THE TRUE STORY OF AYAT AL-‐AKHRAS AND RACHEL LEVY Jerusalem, March 29, 2002: It is seven a.m. on a spring morning in Jerusalem. Eighteen-‐ year-‐old Dima trudges through the mud to college and reflects on many things, including her forthcoming marriage to her cousin Faris. Seventeen-‐year-‐old Myriam skips school to sit on the tree-‐lined hill overlooking the city and think about her friend Michael, whose death she still mourns. And Dima’s and Myriam’s families – one Palestinian, one Israeli – go about their ordinary, separate lives; for today is like every other day. Yet in seven hours’ time, everything will have changed. For ever. Pages 115 For readers aged: 14+ Rights sold: Israel (Pardes Publishing House), Palestine (Palestinian Media Development), United States, Canada, United Kingdom (Walker Books), France (Gallimard), Germany, Spain (Planeta), Australia (Walker Books Australia) New Zealand (Walker Books New Zealand) China (Jeili Publishing House) Korea (Joongang Books) Greece (Phsicogios) Turkey (Kemzi Kitabevi) “PRIMA DI LASCIARSI” PRESS : "Some time ago it happened to me to read Prima di lasciarsi. I read it with great enthusiasm and I believe it is one of those boook that are carrier of civilization (...) I told it publicly (...) Today, the good news is that the novel will be released in September, more or less simultaneously in Israel and Palestine. The book has also been “adopted” by Amnesty International and will be used in schools as a basis for discussion among young people from both countries."Corriere della Sera Magazine " In the style of Robert Altman's Short Cuts, Spike Lee's 25th hour or La Haine by Mathieu Kassovitz (...). Ambrosio uses simple, direct language to create a detached tone in her narrative. She tells the story of men and women living in a maze of terror in Jerusalem, a melancholy and dreadful city often shaken by terrorism." Venerdi di Repubblica "Prima di lasciarsi can do much more for the peace process between Israel and Palestine than hundreds of political speeches I heard." Ali Rashid, former head of the Palestinian delegation in Italy _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com “Gabriella Ambrosio is a successful advertising manager; she wrote a novel about coexistence (...) Raw, but true. Abraham, an Israeli child raised by a Palestinian nurse, is the symbol of those who keep dreaming of a better future in a land where dreams turn into nightmares and coexistence turns into a blend of death." La Stampa “Before We Say Goodbye can do infinitely more for the peace between the two people than hundreds of political goodwill talks I have heard.” Ali Rashid, former head of the Palestinian delegation in Italy “Before We Say Goodbye gives us a rare look and a wonderful opportunity to get to know reality from the bird’s-‐eye view, with all its complexity and many faces. It does not embellish it. It does not blame or judge, nor does it get tangled in political accusations of who is better off or who is hurting more. It mourns, it despairs and it hurts, but it is brutally honest. And that is where its importance lies. That is where its magic lies.” Vered Cohen-‐Barzilay, Director of Communications and Publications, Amnesty International Israel Gabriella Ambrosio is a former journalist and creative director of her own advertising agency. She is also a university professor of Marketing. In 2009, the novel Prima di lasciarsi was nominated -‐ with the support of Israeli and Palestinian representatives of culture and politics -‐ to the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, eventually won by Claudio Magris. Prima di lasciarsi has been published in Israel, Palestine, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Australia and New Zealand. _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com Rights: Worldwide FIOLY BOCCA OVUNQUE TU SARAI (WHEREVER YOU WILL) (GIUNTI -‐ April 2015) A POIGNANT AND DRAMATIC NOVEL, FULL OF HOPE AND JOY, IS A STORY ABOUT THE MAGIC POWER OF A MEETING, WHEN THE GAZE OF A STRANGER REVEALS THAT NOTHING IS BY CHANCE. Commercial Fiction Anita is a thirty-‐three year old woman who lives in Turin. She has been with her boyfriend for more than ten years. She struggles to maintain the precarious balance between her private and professional lives: the relationship with her boyfriend is worn out, her job as literary agent is boring and monotonous. When her mother is diagnosed with cancer, Anita goes back to Obra, the small village in the mountains of Trentino where she was born and where her mother still lives. When she cannot go to visit her mother, Anita writes her letters, trying to reassure her. During one of her trips to Obra Anita meets Arun, a writer of children's novels, and something happens inside her. Arun has many stories to tell and the most surprising one is the story of his life: he is the son of an Italian journalists married to a Cambodian woman, who went to Cambodia to write all the truth about Pol Pot dictatorship. Both his parents were killed by the regime leaving him alone. Anita and Arun start seeing each other and very soon he confesses to love her. But Anita is too confused about her feelings and when her mother dies they stop seeing each other and everything seems to fall apart. When, months later, casually picked up the new book by Arun, she has a revelation, and the face of the writer is superimposed on an episode of her childhood. Everything runs faster then, and the pursuit of a ransom gets a frantic rush that leads her in Denmark. Wherever You Will is a contemporary tale that combines the pain of losing with the love that lurks around the corner, a novel about the magic power of a meeting. Pages 160 Fioly Bocca is 38 years old. She has a degree in Modern Literature at the University of Turin. She lives in the hills of Monferrato with her husband and their two children. Wherever You Will is her first novel. _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com Rights: French, Spanish, Portuguese MARISA SALABELLE L’ESTATE CHE AMMAZZARONO EFISIA CADDOZZU (THE SUMMER WHEN EFISIA CADDOZZU WAS KILLED) (PIEMME -‐ July 2015) The story takes place in Pistoia, on July 25th, 1994. During the feast of St. James, the patron of the city, two boys find the corpse of a woman near a ditch. She has no documents on her, is dressed and made up like a whore, and has been brutally murdered. After frantic investigations, carried out by the police and by a young reporter who dreams of a scoop, it turns out that the body is that of Efisia Caddozzu, a primary school teacher, whose disappearance had been reported by her elderly father, an invalid living in a nursing home. The clues seem to take the trail of suspicion towards the Albanian community: Efisia was a voluntary worker, in the world of immigrants which she well knew, and had taken a young intemperate and violent Albanian under her wing. But who was Efisia Caddozzu really? Why had a simple school teacher been abandoned on the side of a road with her skull smashed in? The investigation leads them all to a single suspect but the truth about the death of Efisia is another, and it is a shocking one. The summer when Efisia Caddozzu was killed it is a thriller that explores the abyss of the human species, it is the story of a family that has emigrated, but it is also the story of a unconventional woman. It is an unforgettable “fresco” of the Italian province, from the ‘60s to ‘90s. Marisa Salabelle was born in Sardinia but from the age of ten years old has lived in Pistoia, Tuscany. She teaches Literature in high school. She is married and has four children, The summer when Efisia Caddozzu was killed is her first novel. _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com MARIO PRATA (Brasil) Born in Uberaba in the state of Minas Gerais (Brazil) Mario Prata, is a writer, screenwriter and journalist. He signed more than 80 works, including novels, screenplays, plays and has received numerous awards, national and international, to films, literature, theater and television. In recent years, he began to attend the detective genre, creating the figure of the detective Ugo Fioravanti protagonist of two novels already published and the third in the works. In the Prata’ stories the stereotypes of the genre are revisited with satirical verve, a formula that has brought him critical acclaim and audiences. His books often end up in the top of the charts of best-‐selling books. His website http://marioprata.net SETE DE PAUS (Ed. Planeta, 2008) THE CASE SEVEN OF WANDS OS VIÚVOS (Ed. Leya, 2010) THE WIDOWERS In 2008, Mario Prata presented to readers the fictional detective Ugo Fioravanti Neto, who debuted in the police adventure Seven of Wands. The character returned in 2010, this time in the pages of the book The Widowers. Resident of Florianópolis for over ten years was at the Magic Island that the writer was inspired to create the detective Fioravanti, mixing plots that explore the geography of the city, the beaches and customs of manezinhos, are known as those born in the capital of Santa Catarina . The third book in the saga Fioravanti due out in 2015. _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com Rights: Worldwide except Greek TEODORO ANDREADIS SYNGHELLAKIS ALEXIS TSIPRAS. LA MIA SINISTRA (ALEXIS TSIPRAS. MY LEFT) (BORDEAUX – January 2015) INTERVIEW WITH SYRIZA LEADER INTRODUCTION BY STEFANO RODOTÀ 4 REPRINTS IN TWO WEEKS THE BOOK CONTAINS THE MAIN POINTS OF THE SYRIZA PROGRAMMATIC PLAT-‐ FORM FOR LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS "The dialogue with Alexis Tsipras is of fundamental importance for Europe of today and to-‐ morrow." ROMANO PRODI, former President of the Council of Ministers, former president of the European Commission The years of the Greek economic crisis and the reforms imposed by the Troika have led the country to these results: there has been a sharp increase in the number of families that leave the bodies of their loved ones in hospitals in Athens because they don't have enough money to provide a proper funeral; the latest UNICEF data tell us that 18% of Greek children are undernourished and parents have no money to buy medicine for them; professionals with decades of experience are asking for help everywhere, willing to leave the country and to accept any honest job, just to survive; as certified by the UN, at least 150,000 Greek scientists have had to go abroad to advance their career. A country that loses its younger generation has great difficulty planning for the future. A country that fails to provide care to all its citizens puts into serious question long-‐ established principles of civil society that should, in Europe, be guaranteed. These are the themes at the heart of the intense dialogue with Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras just months before he won the Greek election. The book covers the role of the left in today’s society, disorientated and severely weakened by the crisis, and the story of Greece, whose population has suffered great hardship under the the plan imposed by the international creditors. This contribution is also a way of saying that we must continue to believe in the project of Europe without forgetting the fundamental basis of democracy and human rights. A clear and courageous analysis on the _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com future of Europe and its economy, a portrait of one of the most clear-‐sighted European politicians. Pages 152 TEODORO ANDREADIS SYNGHELLAKIS born in Rome in 1973, his parents fled from the dictatorship of the colonels. Graduated in modern Greek at the University of Rome, has worked for more than twenty years as a correspondent for Greek Alpha Broadcasting. He is also a correspondent for the Athens Macedonian News Agency and for the newspaper Efimerìda ton Sindaktòn. In Italy, he has reported the Greek crisis for L’Unità, The Huffington Post and Il Messaggero. In 2006 he published Aroma Italias – Italian stories for the Sidèris editions (Greek) and in 2009, the collection of poems Days in the Mirror, published by Nuova Cultura (Italy). Stefano Rodotà, jurist and parliamentarian, from 1983 to 1994 he was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, he participated in writing the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. From 1997 to 2005 he was the first President of the Authority for the Protection of Personal Data in Italy, and from 1998 to 2002 he chaired the Coordination Group for the Right to Privacy in the European Union. He was also a member of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies and chairman of the Committee of European Fundamental Rights. _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com Walkabout literary agency was founded in February 2014 by Ombretta Borgia, Fiammetta Biancatelli and Paolo Valentini. We are proud to represent various leading Italian and foreign writers as well as some new and talented voices. WLA represents authors from all around the world in the fields of literary and commercial fiction and general non-‐fiction. “Walkabout” is a long ritual journey that Aboriginal people engage in, by walking through large expanses of grasslands in Australia ; this allows them to have contacts and exchanges of resources, both material and spiritual, such as the traditional songs. Bruce Chatwin recounted the Walkabout in his “Songlines”: "(...) It was believed that each totemic ancestor, on his journey across the country had spread a trail of words and musical notes along his footprints, and that these Dream tracks had remained on the ground as a 'way' of communication between the various distant tribes. A song was simultaneously both a map and a trasmitting aerial. (...) And a man during a walkabout always moved following a song path (...).” We believe that the name Walkabout describes very well and encompasses the philosophy and the work spirit of our agency. www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com facebook: Walkabout Literary Agency twitter: @Walkaboutlitage _______________________________________________________________________________ Walkabout Literary Agency Ombretta Borgia – [email protected] Fiammetta Biancatelli – fi[email protected] Paolo Valentini – [email protected] www.walkaboutliteraryagency.com
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