Description

Forced back to her remote hometown by the war, Giulia is immediately drawn to a couple in a similar situation: graceful, spontaneous Ada and her husband Paolo, a sickly teacher and partisan in hiding. Joined from Turin by Giulia’s husband Stefano, the two couples form an intense bond; as the Germans begin to occupy Italy, a subtle dance of attractions begins, intensified by their shared isolation and the muffled hum of threat over a long, hard winter.

In prose of subtle, enigmatic atmospheres and acutely precise images, Lalla Romano evokes both the tension and the stillness of life in occupied Italy. Translated into English for the first time, A Silence Shared is a captivating classic novel that inhabits the silent spaces between historic events, depicting the mysterious luminosity of human relationships in extraordinary circumstances.

Publisher Review

"Her work deserves to be read alongside other titans of 20th-century Italian literature such as Natalia Ginzburg, Cesare Pavese and Italo Calvino (all of whom knew and revered her)... Told with magnificent restraint, and without the tensions ever breaking the novel's serene, crystalline structure, A Silence Shared is a wonderful taste of Romano's work." --The Spectator "When a book is praised by three of Italy's greatest 20th-century writers - Giorgio Bassani, Italo Calvino and Natalia Ginzburg - you pay attention... through short scenes and spare dialogue, Romano successfully creates a mood of stasis, anticipation and guilt." --The Guardian "Reading this beguiling book was not unlike watching light and shadow complicate the surface of a still, deep pool of summer water. Hats off to Brian Robert Moore for the stunning translation." --Sunjeev Sahota, Lithub