The Brittle Age bookcover

The Brittle Age

This title will be released on

calendar iconJune 3, 2025

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Description

WINNER OF THE 2024 STREGA PRIZE 
WINNER OF THE 2024 YOUTH STREGA PRIZE 

Acclaimed Italian author Donatella Di Pietrantonio’s best-selling novel to date, The Brittle Age is a powerful mother and daughter story and a profound exploration of human fragility and the haunting shadows of the past 

In the 1990s, deep in the Maiella mountains of Central Italy, a brutal crime shatters the peace of the local community. Two young women are murdered, a third left for dead. Lucia is twenty years old back, and the only survivor is her best friend.    

Now, Lucia is a physiotherapist, separating from her husband, her daughter Amanda studying in Milan.  When the pandemic forces Amanda to return to the family’s home near Pescara, Lucia’s memories are reawakened, and with them the impact of past trauma.  

Set against the backdrop of the rugged Apennine mountains, this gripping psychological family drama weaves Lucia and Amanda’s personal struggles with the mystery of the tragedy that marked their familial land decades earlier.   

Inspired by true events, The Brittle Age is a tale of individual resilience, and a commentary on the indelible impact of historical events on personal lives and the broader community.    

Product Details

PublisherEuropa Editions
Publish DateJune 03, 2025
Pages192
LanguageEnglish
TypeBook iconDigital (delivered electronically)
EAN/UPC9798889660880

About the Author

Donatella Di Pietrantonio lives in Penne, Abruzzo, where she practices as a pediatric dentist. From the age of nine she has been writing stories, fables, poems, and novels. Her short fiction has been published by Granta Italy, and her novel, Bella mia, was nominated for the Strega Prize and won the Brancati Prize. A Girl Returned, her third novel, won the Campiello Prize. A Sister's Story was a finalist for the 2021 Strega Prize and a New Yorker Best Book of 2022. The Brittle Age, her fifth novel, was longlisted for the Strega Prize. 
Ann Goldstein has translated into English all of Elena Ferrante’s books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Lying Life of Adults and The Story of the Lost Child, which was also shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. She has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship and is the recipient of the PEN Renato Poggioli Translation Award. She lives in New York. 

Reviews

Praise for The Brittle Age  

“Donatella Di Pietrantonio tackles this story using resources that are increasingly rare—and therefore urgent—in the contemporary story: modesty, delicacy, respect for the characters’ feelings, ability to listen.”—La Stampa 

“Intense and precise.”—Il Foglio

“We enter the woods in search of the murderer…but it’s the forest—the beech forest of the Dente del Lupo—that is the other principal character of this novel, both a generational saga and a dark fairy tale.”—la Repubblica 

“A novel with the narrative tension of a thriller that moves between rural Abruzzo and a city, Milan, whose promise of freedom remains a mirage.”—Il Mattino 

Praise for A Sister’s Story 

“Another simmering, intense novel of dysfunctional relationships and destructive secrets... Di Pietrantonio radiantly conjures small, piercing moments that linger between characters... Her sharp examinations haunt and illuminate, transforming the quotidian into the indelibly literary.”—Shelf Awareness 

“The talented team of prize-winning author Di Pietrantonio and translator Goldstein once again bring an immersion experience of Italian family and culture, a strong sense of place, and the intricacies and mysteries of intimate relationships in understated, vivid prose.”—Booklist 

“The sisters from the author’s previous novel, A Girl Returned—a stoic narrator and her fiery younger sister, Adriana—reappear in this unsettling companion tale.”—The New Yorker 

“If you’ve devoured everything by Elena Ferrante, there’s a good chance you’ll like the work of Di Pietrantonio.”—Literary Hub, A Most Anticipated Book of Spring 2022 

“Intimate and sharp.”—Il Foglio  

“A true jewel.”—Huffington Post (Italy) 

“Sharp and incandescent… A Sister’s Story unsettles and uplifts.”—Critica Letteraria 

A Sister’s Story carries the same message of the greatest Italian literature of the 20th century, from Elsa Morante to Primo Levi, a message at once tragic and hopeful—that, while suffering may be an inevitable part of life, we can choose not to let it define us.”—la Repubblica 

Praise for A Girl Returned 

“Di Pietrantonio [has a] lively way with a phrase (the translator, Ann Goldstein, shows the same sensitivity she does with Elena Ferrante) [and] a fine instinct for detail.”—The Washington Post 

“An achingly beautiful book, and an utterly devastating one.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune 

★ “A gripping, deeply moving coming-of-age novel; immensely readable, beautifully written, and highly recommended.”—Kirkus Review (Starred Review) 

“Spellbinding.”—Publishers Weekly 

“A captivating tale about the trials of settling down, fitting in and battling on amid emotional upheaval.”—The Economist 

“Donatella Di Pietrantonio employs sensitive and powerful prose to tell the conflicting coming-of-age story of mothers and daughters, of sisterhood, and of self-discovery.”—World Literature Today 

“With unflinching perception, in A Girl Returned Di Pietrantonio presents a heartrending tale of a child discarded, never quite reclaimed.”—Shelf Awareness 

“Set against the rugged landscape of Abruzzo, Italy, A Girl Returned explores the arbitrariness of origin and family relationships, and questions whether we really belong anywhere.”—New Statesman 

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