Children's & YA
September 2019
The hottest summer of the century. Four houses lost among the wheat fields. The big ones are locked in the house. Six children, on their bicycles, venture into the burning and abandoned countryside. In the middle of that sea of ears hides a frightening secret, a secret that will change forever the life of one of them, Michele, a 9-year-old boy. The story is set in the torrid summer of 1978, in the countryside of an unidentified southern Italy, but evoked with rare descriptive force. In this landscape dominated by the contrast between the blinding light of the sun and the darkness of the night, Ammaniti alternates, with wise narrative moments, comedy, the world of children's relationships, the language and the burlesque wisdom of children, their tenacity, the strength of friendship and the drama of betrayal. And at the same time he sketches an unforgettable display of adult characters. A novel of self-discovery through the most extreme risk and the need to face it, Io non ho paura becomes a poignant farewell to the age of play and amazement, to the magical energy that makes us fight monsters. And it insinuates itself under the skin of all of us, like a light stab in the chest.
