Black September

A dazzling, devastating coming-of-age story by the bestselling author of The Hummingbird

'As I read Black September, I kept thinking of Fellini's great film, Amarcord - the young boy's world, the eccentricity, the colour, the brilliance. It's a gem of a novel; I loved it.
RODDY DOYLE

'A perfect novel . . . Melancholic and playful . . . Veronesi proves himself a master'
LA STAMPA

'A luminous declaration of love for the fragile fault lines that shape us'
CORRIERE DELLA SERA

'A novel on a tightrope . . . Between a nostalgic portrait of an Italy marked by the turbulence of the seventies and a psychological thriller, Black September is a strangely addictive novel that leaves the reader changed'
L'ECHOS

'Magnificent . . . Pure delight'
SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG

Summer, 1972.

At his family's summer house in Versilia, Tuscany, twelve-year-old Gigio Bellandi's life is changing: caught on the cusp of adolescence, he finds the familiar places and people newly strange and intoxicating. As he discovers the adult thrills of music and reading, Gigio begins to learn who he is and to see his family without the veils of childhood. And when Astel Raimondi enters his orbit - a girl who kindles dreams and feelings he could never have imagined - his young existence is changed forever.

But every new chapter is also an ending, though it is harder to recognise at the time. And as an unexpected storm starts to threaten the golden days of summer, Gigio's world will be overturned.

Reconstructing that lost season with vivid intensity, Black September is an unforgettable coming-of-age novel about the fragility of innocence, the irreversible bloom of first love and the strange wonder of self-discovery, from one of European literature's greatest storytellers.

'A languid, wistful work that tenderly explores the facets of childhood's endless summers . . . Veronesi's Italian prose excels at capturing the soft, hazy slowness of family holidays and the radiant selfishness of adolescence'
L'EXPRESS

'Truly brilliant . . . As in Annie Ernaux's The Years, private events are interwoven with public ones'
REPUBBLICA

'[Black September] has everything: a vivid setting, jaw-dropping plot twists, dramatic tension that just builds and builds, and, best of all, characters worth not just caring about but suffering with'
RICHARD RUSSO, AUTHOR OF EMPIRE FALLS


Praise for Sandro Veronesi

'Veronesi truly knows and loves all matters of the heart'
IAN MCEWAN

'One of the most skilful and profound Italian storytellers of the past thirty years'
DOMENICO STARNONE