milena agus and luciana castellina beware of my hunger ... · dacia maraini “there is only one...

nottetempo new titles

Milena Agus andLuciana Castellina

Beware of my hunger(Guardati dalla mia fame)

«An intimate and epic story, with an amazing pace.»Il Venerdì di Repubblica

«A remarkable book, with two voices and two styles, narrative and non-fictional... It is worth referring back to the words of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish: “Watch yourself... / Watch yourself / From my hunger / And my anger.”» il manifesto

«Agus and Castellina have developed a writing that is clear, simple, effective, yet also enveloping. Beware of my hunger is something more than a “mere” historical reminiscence».La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno

«The hidden and ancient story of a forgotten civil war.» Il Foglio

In Andria, on March 6, 1946, the politician and unionist Giuseppe Di Vittorio holds a congress. On that occasion the small town in Puglia becomes the scene of a dreadful crime: two women belonging to the local aristocracy are killed by rabidly desperate labourers. Milena Agus and Luciana Castellina tell the facts, each with their own passion and reason.Milena Agus recreates the palace of the wealthy unmarried Porro sisters with her dazzling and loving imagination. On the other side, Luciana Castellina tells the story and the circumstances that turned a group of labourers and their wives into ferocious killers. One on the inside and the other on the outside, the palace and the square, two worlds that don’t know each other and that explode once they come into contact.

25 April 2014fiction

190 pages14 x 20 cm

Milena Agus lives in Cagliari where she teaches Italian. The author of the internation bestseller Mal di pietre, Agus is the recipient of several literary awards. Her works have been translated into over thirty languages.

Luciana Castellina has been a leading figure of the Italian Left since the 1960s and a member of the Euro-pean parliament for twenty years. Her novel La scoperta del mondo, shortlisted for the Strega Award, has been translated in several languages (nottetempo 2011).

The ghastly tale of an awful crime committed

in Italy just after WWII. The facts are narrated by the two contrasting

voices of the victim and aggressor.

Shortlisted for the Sila Award

Rights sold to:Liana Levi (France)


June 2014fiction

256 pages12 x 16,5 cm

Mila Venturini

Love is not worthwile (L’amore non conviene)

“The author fully reaffirms herself with a light and breezy comedy that could replicate D’Avenia’s success among younger generations, while - as in his case - also pleasing more mature readers.” Cristina De Stefano, Elle

“The author gives us moments of serenity and healthy grace. A book that praises normality and daily life. A story that propels us into a pastel-coloured world. Sometimes we need this, especially after so much greyness.” Il Tempo

“Agile dialogues and a good fairy-tale, where it is clear that “love is a misunderstanding of reason” as Fabrizio De André used to say.” Pagina99

“A lovely novel to discover that it is always worth loving.”Tu Style

Serpieri is disappointed in love. His marriage has failed leaving a deep mark in him. He is also a philosophy teacher at a high school, and – inspired by his personal ethical position – he offers his pupils a new program for the year, titled “The hazardous effects of love on younger generations”. The students are initially puzzled but they soon grow enthusiastic. There are few rules, but all have been certified by the personal experience of the professor. He teaches them how to avoid looking into the eyes of the person that they find interesting, and how to tactfully spray them with pigeon repellent. Pupils practice with zeal and begin to put his teachings into practice, yet the question still remains open: is it really true that “love is not worthwhile”? From Mila Venturini a fun new novel about love and its dangers.

A call to free ourselves from the feelings of

passion and from couple relationships. All the tricks

to avoid the symptoms of being in love. With an

unexpected happy ending.

Mila Venturini, a tv writer from Rome, has worked among other things for Un medico in famiglia and Un posto al sole. For nottetempo she has published Two of everything and a suitcase in 2010, Grand Prix Selection of the readers of Elle. For Biancoenero she published the children’s mystery novel Detective al mare. She also conducts creative writing workshops for children.


Elisa Ruotolo

Protect us, anywhere(Ovunque, proteggici)

“If it is true that we are architects of our own future, the past is a family matter. Elisa Ruotolo wrote with wisdom and intelligence, fabricating a novel that is bitter yet light, private yet universal”. Dacia Maraini

“There is only one way of being contemporary and at the same time embracing all the traditions of the ordinary until it becomes extraordinary: great writing. Elisa Ruotolo is a great writer”. Marcello Fois

Elisa Ruotolo is back with a novel that runs along the arc of a century: the story of a family and of its shame.On an ordinary day Lorenzo Girosa, in his fifties and alone after the wreck of his family, receives a letter in which someone claims to know a secret that had ceased to haunt him since years: a crime committed at the dawn of his teens. From here the story of a buried past, of a family and of its large house, generous in spaces but burdened by the bad luck of a childless home. It is the story of Domenico, who emigrated to America to seek a fortune in the early twentieth century and found instead a life of crime. The story, of his son Nicola, who on the death of his father, without a job or a talent, embarked for Italy and settled as a stranger in an unfamiliar house, to become a rude jester with shaded eyes, known to all as Blacmàn .The one who picks up the threads is Lorenzo, son of Blacmàn, who comes to Villa Girosa determined to protect the dark shadows in his past.

March 2014fiction

328 pages14 x 20 cm

Elisa Ruotolo (Santa Maria a Vico, 1975) lives near Caserta where she teaches Italian at high school. With nottetempo she published her short stories collection Ho rubato la pioggia (2010) and her novel Ovunque, proteggici (2014).

A novel that runs along the arc of a century:

the story of a family and of its shame.

Shortlisted forthe Strega Award 2014


Daniele Giglioli

Critics of the victim. An experiment with ethics(Critica della vittima. Un esperimento con l’etica)

“A sharp pamphlet, somewhere between moral philosophy and sociology.” Corriere della sera

“A vibrant and inspired style. A detailed reflection on the topic.” Il Sole 24 Ore

“Giglioli dissects, complicates, flashes, threatens, introduces doubt. A worthy operation.” l’Unità

“Giglioli captures a key aspect of the post-political landscape in which we are immersed.” Pagina99

How can a victim generate leadership and proselytes just as a religion does? And how can it encompass at the same time the feeling of shame and pride? From politics to society, from history to literature, from law to psychology, Giglioli analyzes the symptoms of the contemporary victim. Among its expressions: the obsessive celebration of memory; the humanitarian belief that “keeps the defenceless unarmed” and “leaves intact the arsenals of the powerful”; the capitalist claim for the right to well-being that turns into frustration and inadequacy; the contemporary mythology of the “conspiracy”. In all these cases the liability of evil is elsewhere, outside of us. In a sharp and clear essay, the author investigates the origins of the ideology of the victim and the established strategy of today’s lamentation that divides society into guilty and innocent. Ultimately, Giglioli highlights the crisis of “a form of life” – our form of life.

February 2014non-fiction124 pages

14 x 20 cm

Daniele Giglioli is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Bergamo. He collaborates with the newspaper Corriere della Sera. He has published, among other works, Tema (La nuova Italia, 2001), Il pedagogo e il libertino (Bergamo University Press, 2002), All’ordine del giorno è il terrore (Bompiani, 2007), Senza trauma (Quodli-bet, 2011).

«The victim is the hero of our time. Being a victim

gives us a status. It forces other people to listen to us. […] The victim lives with a sense of absence

and request, weakness and claim, and with the desire

to have and to be».


Giorgio Agamben

The fire and the story(Il fuoco e il racconto)

What is at stake in literature? What is this lost “fire” that “stories” constantly seek to find? And what is the philosopher’s stone that writers pursue, with the passion of alchemists, in their word furnaces? And what is it that in every act of creation tenaciously resists creation itself, thus giving the work its strength and grace? And why is the parable the secret model of all narrative?As in Profanazioni e Nudità (Desecration and Nudity), Giorgio Agamben has collected here ten short essays presenting the most urgent motivations behind his current research. As always in his work there is a persistent investigation on the “mystery” of literature and on its material manifestations (how the act of reading is transformed by the transition from book to screen). This exploration is interwoven with a meditation on the ethical and political “mystery” of modernity: the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem.

May 2014non-fiction192 pages

14 x 20 cm

Giorgio Agamben is a philosopher. His wide body of work has been translated wor-ldwide. Among his works: Homo Sacer (Einaudi, 1995), Stato di eccezione (Bollati, 2003), Il sacramento del linguaggio (Laterza, 2008). Other titles with nottetempo: Pro-fanazioni (2005), Che cos’è un dispositivo? (2006), L’amico (2007), Nudità (2009) and La chiesa e il regno (in 2010).

Rights sold to:Payot-Rivages (France), Fischer (Germany), Sexto Piso (world Spanish).

Ricardo Coler

The Women Kingdom(Il regno delle donne)

“Coler introduces us to a society where it is the man who needs to ask for permission.” Il Venerdì di Repubblica

“A book that explains a perfect way to be happy, a book to read and remember.” Vanity Fair

“It is a small revolutionary act. A proof of how it could be possible to change our current way of life, in which we are deceived, flattered in our imaginary superiority.” L’Unità

“A compelling reportage, that shows that it is possible to lead a different and happier life.” il Fatto Quotidiano

In Mosuo society, it is women who work, while men practise idleness. Only women have their own room. The men assemble by the lake in the evenings until seeking out their lovers around midnight. It is always the woman who receives, the reverse is a taboo. Thus early in the mornings the streets are bustling with men creeping home before mother wakes them. Since women frequently change lovers and no one ever knows who spent the night together; jealousy is almost unheard of. For a Mosuo woman there is only one reason to stay with a man for longer: Love. Since the Mosuo only count those related by blood to their family and the father fi gure is non existent, love does not justify itself either by the existence of children, joint possession or social pressure. When love fades away, a Mosuo couple separates. It is about this fascinating world, governed by rules so dissimilar to ours. Without bias, but with plenty of humour and self-irony, he sheds light on a culture of which we know so little.

2013reportage220 pages

14 x 20 cm

Ricardo Coler is an Argentinian doctor, writer and photographer. His travelling repor-tages are published in several countries with great success. With nottetempo he publi-shed Eterna giovinezza (2011) and Il regno delle donne (2013).

Rights sold to:Ketzal (Portugual), Thomas de Hoy (Spain), Presses de la Cité (France), Aufbau (Germany), Nemesis Kitap (Turchia), Planeta (South America).

nottetempo selected backlist

Paola Camassa

The Powerful(La Potente)

“Paola Camassa outlines an all but ordinary picture of the drama of betrayal, reinterpreting it with the disillusionment and affection of a child who does not want to give up the love that their parents have for their passion.” l’Unità

What happens when an entire family ends up on a psychoanalyst’s couch? The Powerful, the first novel by Paola Camassa, is the story of a family, an adultery and a treachery. It reveals the weaknesses and lies on which most of us build our relationships.

In a house with many rooms, stairs and balconies, and in a cheerful and happy family, the drama of betrayal breaks out between the parents. The daughters, grandparents, friends and servants, and all witnesses to the event without exception, remain dumbfounded by the revelation. The most incredulous is one of the four girls, who still wants to believe in the strength of the relationship between her parents and in their sexual happiness. In The Powerful, Paola Camassa, denying the neutrality of facts and the sequence with which they unfold, depicts a tale of a deceitful drama in several acts, in which each experiences his or her own dual, each capable of turning the family dream into a melodrama.

“But the kiss on the lips between mom and dad was the most awaited moment. The red lips protruded, Dad approached them gazing into her eyes. The sisters looked elsewhere resentfully. All the others were reassured. The little one smiled. Dad trembled. From that kiss he measured his commitment in the immediate future.”

January 2014fiction

124 pages14 x 20 cm

Paola Camassa was born in Trapani. She lives in Palermo where she works as a psychoanalyst. The Powerful (La Potente) is her first novel.


“Once you start reading you can not take your eyes off the page.”

marie claire

“It is a modern, feminine and Freudian version of Eduardo De Filippo’s comedy Le voci di dentro (Voices inside).”

valeria parrella

“An original way to present a juicy story, with a choral structure in short acts.”

il mattino

Paola Campanini

Poor heart of a woman(Povero cuor di donna)

Rome, July 1947. On the Appian Way a small girl finds the brutalized body of a young woman. Forty-year-old detective Achille De Santis is put on the case. Set in a poor and hungry post-war Rome, the investigation leads unexpectedly to an illegal expatriation organization. Although fictional, the story reveals a surprising criminal connection existing at the time between Italy and Argentina. This dramatic story is told with a mixture of languages and dialects, hidden and stolen identities and characters whose strength is drawn from the pain of powerful sentiment.

“They found the woman early in the morning just outsidePorta San Sebastiano, right at the beginning of the AppianWay. She was shoeless, her feet dirty with mud and scratchmarks on her ankles. It seems odd to me that someoneshould get out of a car without any shoes on if they knowthey’ve got to go into bushes. A shoe was found at the sideof the road, perhaps she lost it when they were draggingher away”.

July 2013crime fiction

224 pages12 x 16,5 cm

Paola Campanini lives in Rome. She is a puppeteer, actress and expert on figure thea-tre.


“A good noir novel set in a thrilling and romantic post-war Rome”.

vanity fair

“Gentle and intense”.il fatto

“A thriller for thinking people”.

il venerdí di repubblica

Luciana Castellina

The discovery of the world(La scoperta del mondo)

Coming of age and political consciousness in turbolent times

A dedicated activist and intellectual, Luciana Castellina was one of the founders of the daily newspaper il manifesto and a parliamentary member of the Communist Party. During her adolescence and early youth she kept a diary tracing the development of her political ideas. The diary covers such topics as how, aged fourteen, she would play tennis with schoolmate Anna Maria Mussolini, then watch her racing off to join her father, and continues to when she was to join the Communist Party. During the years in between we trace the evolution of a girl from Rome’s exclusive Pario li district, whose eyes are open to the world and history, hesitant in thought but keen to understand. It includes her early travels, friends and her first joyous job, building a railway in Bo snia with other young people. Adventure, rebellion and the discovery of a spirit that was free, intelligent and impatient to gain shape. A gripping coming-of-age both sentimental and political that offers a powerful insight into a crucial postwar years.

Shortlisted for the Strega Award 2011.Shortlisted for the Prix du Livre Européen 2013

February 2011fiction

240 pages14 x 20 cm

Luciana Castellina is a politician, journalist and writer. A member of the Italian Com-munist Party since 1947, she left the Party to establish the newspaper Il Manifesto in 1969. Her most recent work is Siberiana (nottetempo, 2012) and together with Milena Agus Guardati dalla mia fame (nottetempo, 2014).

Rights sold to:Actes Sud (France), Verso (World English),Laika (Germany).

“An anti-heroic account, a depiction of a sentimental education nourished by passion, curiosity and the levity of life, and with an eager sincerity always bursting forth.”

la repubblica

“A most beautiful book built around the themes of a diary from the years 1943–47.”

la stampa

“As long as there are lives and testimonies like that of La scoperta del mondo, we will not be in total darkness.”

ettore scola


Adrián Bravi

South 1982(Sud 1982)

“With the skill of a spider Bravi weaves stories that appear translucent, innocent and amiable: readers fall into them like flies. They discover that at the centre of a harmonious web lies a writer who is formidable, fierce and totally unforgiving”. Alberto Manguel

In 1982 Argentina is in crisis. Torn apart by protests against the military junta, it calls a generation to arms in the hope that patriotic feeling and a quick and easy war will bring the nation back together. Adrián N. Bravi tells of the war in the Malvinas Islands through the story of Alberto Adorno, a young recruit for whom the tragedy of an absurd conflict is transformed into comedy. South 1982 portrays the feelings of someone waiting to leave the army, of someone who has only just enlisted, of someone who is about to return home but stills feels he is in the trenches, of someone who wanders about camp with a book of poetry in his pocket.With the ironic voice of a modern Soldier Švejk, Adrián N. Bravi narrates the last war between western nations, a war that is every war.

Popoli in cammino award 2008.

2008fiction

180 pages14 x 20 cm

Adrián N. Bravi (1963) was born in San Fernando, Buenos Aires, and lives in Italy, where he works as a librarian. His novels published by nottetempo are La pelusa (2007), Sud 1982 (2008), Il riporto (2010) and L’albero e la vacca (2013), winner of the Bergamo fiction award 2014.

Full English text available.


Chiara Valerio

The little happiness of beingalmost saved(La gioia piccola d’esser quasisalvi)

After an absence of some months Giulia comes back to her seaside town to look after her maternal grandmother, Agata, who is suffering from a degenerative disease. Giulia’s childhood friend Marco lives in a fl at opposite her window with Leni, a prostitute who receives her clients there. Marco has loved Giulia since the day he saw her mother plunge from the balcony; since the moment he had retrieved his friend’s shoe which, in little Giulia’s eyes, her mum had reached out to grasp. Amid the hallucinations of Agata, who is persecuted by her daughter’s blood, the seductions of Leni whom Giulia and Marco cannot resist, plus an unmentionable secret, these four interwoven lives seek to leave the fetters of a known and painful past for a future that still has surprises in store. With her third novel La gioia piccola d’esser quasi salvi, Chiara Valerio has achieved a lucid and sensual prose which places her among the most interesting writers of the latest generation.

“Giulia is sweating and thinking it’s been too long. That if Agata had left her alone for three months as a child she would have died of hunger and boredom. She walks, head down. Giulia feels as insubstantial as the shadow of the midday sun around her feet. A small dark halo which is the opposite of having been good. Three months now seem all the time. She stops, it is hot. Above her, two people are talking loudly.”

July 2009fi ction

260 pages14 x 20 cm

Chiara Valerio was born in Scauri in 1978. She is on the editorial board of Nuovi Ar-gomenti, Nazione Indiana and nottetempo. Her most recent works include: Nessuna scuola mi consola (nottetempo 2009), Spiaggia libera tutti (Laterza, 2010) and Almanac-co del giorno prima (Einaudi, 2014).


Rights sold to:Wereldbibliotheek (Holland)

Maria Pace Ottieri andCarol Gaiser

Promise you won’t die(Promettimi di non morire)

“A heartbreaking tale of emotions”. Il Venerdí di Repubblica

“A highly original and seductive novel”. Il Sole 24 Ore

“A perceptive and wholly feminine journey of discovery”. la Repubblica

“A beautiful and unusual book. An uncompromising analysis that leaves its mark”. Corriere della Sera

In the Sixties, Carol, a beautiful American girl, arrives in Rome on a scholarship; she is smart, witty and writes poetry and prose. She meets Alberto Moravia who introduces her to the Roman art and literary scene. On a trip to Spoleto with Moravia and Pasolini, Carol meets Silvana Mauri. This marks the start of an intense friendship. Throughout her life Carol writes long letters to Silvana. Once back in New York and bent on becoming a writer, Carol is overcome by the competition, the cult for success and money. The troubled existence she is to lead is marked by unsuitable romances and loneliness, only relieved by memories of the happy times spent in Rome, frozen in a constant present that does not progress.

Shortlisted for the Comisso Prize 2013Shortlisted for the Zerilli-Marimò Award 2013

May 2013fiction

264 pages14 x 20 cm

Maria Pace Ottieri is a writer and journalist. Published by nottetempo: Quando sei nato non puoi piú nasconderti (made into a film by director Marco Tullio Giordana), Abbandonami (Grinzane Cavour book prize 2005) and Chiusi dentro (2011).

Carol Gaiser, poetess and reporter, has written for Glamour, Newsweek and The New York Times. She lives in Queens (NY).


milena agus and luciana castellina beware of my hunger ... · dacia maraini “there is only one...

Documents