Description

‘Now that you’ve grown and I’ve fallen ill, our bodies can no longer fit together.’

Winner of the Strega Prize 2023

Ada d’Adamo is mother to Daria. Their days are absorbed by caregiving and routine. Daria’s profound needs remained undetected in pregnancy, and with her birth, Ada’s world is remade.

As a dancer she must use her physicality in new ways, to keep her daughter safe. As a writer she must find a language to communicate beyond words. And when, on the cusp of her fifties, Ada herself becomes gravely ill, she takes the most courageous decision of all: to leave Daria their story.

This is Gravity, a journey of isolation, anger and sometimes despair, through moments of joy and exquisite tenderness, towards a love stronger than life.

Publisher Review

'A novel that delves into the reader's heart. It took the precise and implacable language of this writer to support such a ferocious sentiment. You enter this book with enormous ease, but you come out of this book changed. There is such an amount of life in its pages that it leaves us breathless.' -- Elena Stancanelli 'A magnificent book. A wonderful dialogue between a mother and a daughter... A story like this belongs to everyone. It's a gift: in these cases we say thank you, and we smile.' -- Concita de Gregorio 'A book about pain is successful when it is also a book full of happiness. And when you read the first page, you understand that Come d'aira is a book that radiates happiness.' -- Paolo di Stefano 'A magical book. You read it and you think that no one can manage to bear so much anguish, and at the same time you think that no, it's not true, it can be done because they did it and so many people do it, because this is nothing but life.' -- Elena Stancanelli 'It took very few pages, or perhaps a few lines, to understand that that was literature, and that I was reading a book that I would find marvellous.' -- Francesco Piccolo 'A book whose reading gives off a light on every page.' -- Lisa Ginzburg