Strangers I Know
Translated by Elizabeth Harris.
- £12.99
- Available
- Paperback published on 19/01/2022
- Page count: 272 pages
- ISBN: 9781913097837
Quick take
A work of fiction about being a stranger in your own family and life. Both parents are deaf but couldn't be more different. Into this unlikely yet somehow inevitable union, our narrator is born and comes of age in this strange, and increasingly estranged, household split between a small village in southern Italy and New York City.
Synopsis
Every family has its own mythology, but in this family none of the myths match up. Claudia's mother says she met her husband when she stopped him from jumping off a bridge. Her father says it happened when he saved her from an attempted robbery.
Both parents are deaf but couldn't be more different; they can't even agree on how they met, much less who needed saving. Into this unlikely yet somehow inevitable union, our narrator is born. She comes of age with her brother in this strange, and increasingly estranged, household split between a small village in southern Italy and New York City.
Without even sign language in common – their parents have not bothered to teach them – family communications are chaotic and rife with misinterpretations. An outsider in every way, she longs for a freedom she's not even sure exists. Only books and punk rock – and a tumultuous relationship – begin to show her the way to create her own mythology, to construct her own version of the story of her life.
Kinetic, formally daring, and strikingly original, Strangers I Know is a funny and profound portrait of an unconventional family that makes us look anew at how language shapes our understanding of ourselves.
About the author
Claudia Durastanti is the author of four critically acclaimed novels. A former Italian Fellow in Literature at the American Academy of Rome, she is a co-founder of the Italian Literature Festival in London. She writes for several literary supplements and is on the board of the Turin Book Fair. She is the Italian translator of Joshua Cohen, Donna Haraway, Ocean Vuong, and the most recent edition of The Great Gatsby. Strangers I Know, a finalist for the Premio Strega in 2019, has been translated into twenty-one languages. She currently lives in Rome.
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More books published by Fitzcarraldo Editions
Fitzcarraldo Editions is an independent publisher specialising in contemporary fiction and long-form essays. Founded in 2014, it focuses on ambitious, imaginative and innovative writing, both in translation and in the English language.
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