Synopses & Reviews
Fourteen-year-old Margherita tries to break her family's new love of modern technology and high-tech excesses and go back to their simpler, more frugal ways.
Review
The sickly 14-year-old heroine of this charming Italian novel prefers to call things not only by the names that are found in the dictionary but also by names found only in the fictitonary, names that I make up and choose. Thanks to Antony Shugaar, we have a renewed appreciation of the imaginations ability to free us from our increasingly mundane surroundings. New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
Stefano Benni's enormously popular and distinctive mix of the absurd and the satiri-cal has made him one of Italy's most important and best-loved novelists. This is his twelfth best-selling book of fiction.
Fourteen-year-old Margherita lives with her eccentric family on the outskirts of town, a semi-urban wilderness peopled by gypsies, illegal immigrants, and no end of bizarre characters: a reassuring and fertile playground for an imaginative little girl like Margherita. But one day, a gigantic, black cube shows up next door. Her new neighbors have arrived, and they're destined to ruin everything.
About the Author
Stefano Benni is widely considered Italy's foremost satirist and a dramaturge of considerable note. His many novels, collections of essays, poetry and short stories include: Bar Sport, The Company of Celestials, and The Cafe Beneath the Sea. He lives in Bologna.