Publisher Description
It is four years since the virus came, killing every adult in its path. Not long after that the electricity failed. Food and water started running out. Fires raged across the country. Now Anna cares for her brother alone in a house hidden in the woods, keeping him safe from 'the Outside'. But, when the time comes, Anna knows they must leave their world and find another.
By turns luminous and tender, gripping and horrifying, Anna is a haunting parable of love and loneliness; of the stories we tell to sustain us, and the lengths we will go to in order to stay alive.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Niccolò Ammaniti’s novel is a dark, fascinating study of the power that hope can exert—for good and bad. The enthralling plot follows 13-year-old Anna’s nightmarish journey through a dystopian Sicily after a virus kills everyone who’s passed puberty. As Anna tracks rumours of a cure and tries to protect her younger brother from lawless hordes of survivors, Ammaniti drills into the children’s increasingly desperate minds with convincing, daring prose.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ammaniti (I'm Not Scared) conjures a solemn dystopia in this picturesque view of a world gone wrong. Four years after a virus wipes out all adults, 13-year-old Anna Salemi spends her days foraging in the ruins of a Sicilian landscape ravaged by fires, looting, and violence. Dogs rove in packs, desperate for food, as do the nearly feral children who've been left behind, untouched by the Red Fever until puberty strikes, and they become susceptible to the virus. Anna channels her energy into pursuing one goal: keeping her younger brother, Astor, alive and well. When other kids storm their farmhouse, Anna must choose to either fall into the despair afflicting the other children as they reach the end of their lives, or to strike out for an enigmatic sector known as the Strait in hopes of finding a cure. Although the story is bleak, Ammaniti focuses on the resilience of those striving to live the best lives they can. "In the end," one of his characters states, "what's important is not how long your life is, but how you live it." Ammaniti keeps this reminder at the heart of his rich, deceptively optimistic tale.
