Synopses & Reviews
A fable for children and adults: a story of life, death, and terrorism—in the grand tradition of Exupéry’s
The Little Prince. When we first meet Baron Lamberto, he is very rich and very ill. He owns twenty-six banks and has been diagnosed with twenty-six deadly ailments: only his butler Anselmo remembers them all.
On the advice of an Egyptian sage, Lamberto hires an army of servants to repeat his name over and over and over. It’s a recipe, he’s told, for eternal life.... Surprisingly, it works.
But Lamberto’s newfound youth is put at risk when a terrorist group lays siege to his private island in the mountains near Lake Orta. The Baron’s army of bank directors are held hostage, and an international media spectacle is born. Lamberto becomes the first casualty.
Based on the true-life terrorism of the Colombian M19 movement and the Red Brigades’ kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto is an adroit, witty, and poignant reflection on what happens when terrorism strikes.
But it’s also a fantastic tale: Our beloved Lamberto eventually springs back to life to negotiate with the terrorists against impossible odds. There are things, writes Rodari, “that only happen once.” In fact, “there are things that only happen in fairytales.”
Synopsis
A fable for children and adults: a story of life, death, and terrorism—in the grand tradition of Exupéry’s The Little PrinceWhen we first meet 93-year-old millionaire Baron Lamberto, he has been diagnosed with 24 life-threatening ailments—one for each of the 24 banks he owns. But when he takes the advice of an Egyptian mystic and hires servants to chant his name over and over again, he seems to not only get better, but younger.
Except then a terrorist group lays siege to his island villa, his team of bank managers has to be bussed in to help with the ransom negotiations, and a media spectacle breaks out . . .
A hilarious and strangely moving tale that seems ripped from the headlines—although actually written during the time the Red Brigades were terrorizing Italy—Gianni Rodari’s Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto has become one of Italy’s most beloved fables. Never before translated into English, the novel is a reminder, as Rodari writes, that “there are things that only happen in fairytales.”
About the Author
Gianni Rodari (October 23, 1920–April 14, 1980) was an Italian writer and journalist, most famous for his books for children. The recipient of the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1970, Rodari is a household name in Italy among educators and parents, not to mention children, and is considered by many literary historians to be the country’s most important writer of children’s literature in the twentieth century. Influenced by French surrealism and linguistics, Rodari advocated poetry and language play as a way to recover the rhythm and sound of oral tradition and nursery rhymes. He is the author of
The Grammar of Fantasy, a classic manual for teachers, as well as many books for children.
Antony Shugaar is an author and translator. Among his recent translations are Everybody’s Right by Paolo Sorrentino, Bandit Love by Massimo Carlotto, and Sandokan by Nanni Balestrini.