Italian Literature Book Group for February

The focus of the book group is fiction and non-fiction; books written by Italian authors (in translation); books written by any author, set in Italy, and books about Italy. It’s a large set, but one book generally leads in the direction of the next, so we won’t feel discombobulated. The moderator of the book club is Connie Bertuca, former high school English teacher, lover of books and Italian travel, and perpetual Italian 2 student.

 📚 The February 2023 Book Selection    — Eva Sleeps by Francesca Melandri

A bestselling novel in Italy and Elle magazine's book of the year, Eva Sleeps is a sweeping modern story about family, forgiveness, and conflict. At its heart is the story of a woman searching for the truth about her origins. This literary page-turner will delight fans of Elena Ferrante.  Out of the struggles and conflicts in the border regions of Northern Italy and Austria and the rich history that has resulted from this meeting of cultures, comes a family story that embodies the history of nations. Eva, a forty-year-old public relations professional living in Northern Italy, receives an unexpected message from Southern Italy. Vito, a man she briefly knew as a child as a friend of her mother's, is very ill and would like to see her one last time. He is a retired police officer who was stationed in the north during the late-sixties, a period rife with tension, protest, and violence. These troubles, however, did not stop a young hapless policeman from falling in love with the "wrong" woman, a girl named Gerda from Austrian Tyrol, an inventive and accomplished cook, a single mother with a rich family history of her own, a northerner, the sister of a terrorist, and Gerda's mother.

~ GoodReads.com

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*the size of the group is limited to 10 members.  If you are not yet a paid member of Dante, sign-up here.  Now that we are beginning to meet in-person at someone's home (outside), everyone participating must be fully-vaccinated.