The extraordinary dystopian novel from the internationally-bestselling author of “I’m Not Scared” (“Io non ho paura”, 2001, Premio Viareggio),
Since it’s original publication in Italy in 2015, “Anna” was translated and published in Australia, New Zealand, U.K., France, Netherlands, Spain and Latin America, Greece, Serbia : in Italian, English, French, Spanish, Catalan, Dutch, Greek and Serbian.
“Imagine a Sicily as mysterious as a forgotten continent, where there is no electricity and wild dogs follow you on the highway. A ruthless virus has exterminated the adults and left the youth alive. In this world of cadavers and useless objects, the children play, fight and love. And now imagine Anna, thirteen years old, and Astor, her eight-year-old brother. They inherited a prodigious desire to survive and a notebook in which their mother gave them instructions on how to do so.”
“Few writers have known how to recount the fragility of destiny, opening it wide before our eyes with all its naked biological energy.
But no one has incarnated it with so much softness in the gaze of a thirteen-year-old, marvelously stubborn in her ability to sniff out, like an animal, every possibility for survival.
In a primitive landscape shorn of the civility warmth, Anna, her brother and a large dog set out on an initiatory voyage through roads and forests, malls and houses falling apart, in quest for an obscure happiness.
With “Anna”, Niccolò Ammaniti has written his most ambitious and heart-rending novel. A miraculous homage to life.”
“After the epidemic Anna had plunged into a loneliness so vast and dull as to leave her an emptied idiot for months, but not once, not even for a second did the idea of putting an end to it all cross her mind, because she felt that life was stronger than all this. Life doesn’t belong to us, it cuts through us.”
“Ammaniti sets a new standard in post-apocalyptic fiction” – John Burnside, The Guardian
“Ammaniti has created a totally convincing Lord of the Flies-esque world and young Anna, endlessly resourceful amid the horror and chaos, is a heroine to root for.” – Alice O’Keefe, Editor’s Choice, The Bookseller
“A magnificently crumbling Sicily is the theater of these events. The Messina bridge is seen by Anna as a possible destination of a redemptive exodus, to be reached in the only way possible now – on foot.” – Michele Serra, La Repubblica
“The emptiness left by a parent triggers the opening of an emotional abyss that won’t be placated, if not through living it.” – Marco Missiroli, Corriere della Sera
“Ammaniti’s devotion to his protagonist brings him close to the compassion that Cormac McCarthy transmits to his creatures in The Road, recalling the atmosphere of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and the decadence of The Walking Dead, though without the carnage.” – Corriere della Sera
“Little savages fighting with the hostility of the world and the lack of role models, a world with new rules, absolutely unknown.” – Le Figaro Littéraire
“In this apocalyptic tale that borrows Bradbury and McCarthy, we find Ammaniti’s obsession for adolescence, that violent moment when a individual oscillates between the indifference and the dream of childhood and the unavoidable transition to adulthood. Like a demiurge, Ammaniti eliminates the “grown ups” from the earth, as it was a punishment for failing in their mission, and he gives Anna the opportunity for a new freedom.” – L’Obs
Niccolò Ammaniti was born on the 25th of September 1966 in Rome where he lives.
Niccolò is the winner of the Premio Strega on 2007 for “As God Commands” (also published under the title The Crossroads), in italian, “Come Dio comanda” and of Premio Viareggio in 2001, for “Io non ho paura” (I’m Not Scared).
He made his debut in fiction in 1995 with the novel “Branchie”.
He is the author of award-winning novels and short stories, translated in 44 countries: “Fango” (1996), “Ti prendo e ti porto via” (1999), “Io non ho paura” (2001, Premio Viareggio), “Come Dio comanda” (2006, Premio Strega), “Che la festa cominci” (2009), “Io e te” (2010), “Il momento è delicate” (2012) and “Anna” (2015).
In 2014 he edited the anthology “Figuracce”, which includes the short story “Marco Risi contro la Maga della Maglianella”.
Many of his books have been successfully made into films:
“L’ultimo capodanno” (directed by Marco Risi, 1998);
“Branchie” (directed by Francesco Ranieri Martinotti, 1999);
“Io non ho paura”
and “Come Dio comanda” (both directed by Gabriele Salvatores, 2003 and 2008),
“Io e te” (directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, 2012).
Following his work as author and director of the feature-length doc “The Good Life” (2014), Ammaniti is currently working on “The Miracle“, an original TV series for SKY for which he is serving as showrunner, co-writer of the screenplay and co-director.
