10 of the best novels set in Italy – that will take you there - MW

Long before Covid-19, there were always bad things in the press regarding Italy: corruption, mafia, bureaucracy. But every time I went there, life seemed to end like this. People may be poor, but they sit in the sun, drink and talk; Music and culture are a birthright; the right seems to be on the rise, but on the ground, it feels blessed with far-sighted idealists - for example, it has almost four times more organic farmland than in the UK. Right now, the remedy for the withdrawal symptoms I am feeling is accessible via text. Many writers have ordered books in Italy - I'm sorry to forget Martin Amis Fathers The Widow Pregnant (Calabria) and Ali Smith, How to Become Both (Ferrara) - but these are the first 10 novels of me.

The other end of Andrea Camilleri

I can leave my beloved Sicily, and of course it means Inspector Montalbano. Well-known stories in the UK come from television adaptations, with aerial scenes of Ragusa and other fascinating places in the south-east of the South Island, so why not spend a lot of time in the south with one of Andrea Camilleri's books? A range of quirky characters make things soothing, and the joy is also in the obsession with detective food: you can almost taste red wine and fried arancini. But it's Sicily, so the darkness is hidden: the Mafia, human trafficking, drugs, racism. It is difficult to choose a novel, but this one, which deals with a group of refugees, is distinguished by the anger of right-wing leader Matteo Salvini with the message of supporting migrants.

My great friend by Elena Ferrante

It was done on stage and on television, but the story of Elena Ferrante (the first story of her Neapolitan quadrilateral) on poverty, the amici and the mafiosi in the 20th century Napoli is always better appreciated in book form ( although I seem to be the only one to find awkward translations of Anne Goldstein). Readers can imagine Lenù and Lila growing up in the middle of narrow streets full of laundry, but in fact, the book, not named the Islamic quarter, is not the historic center but Rione Luzzatti, a suburb. Nazi period beyond the main station. From there, readers follow the heroine as they explore through the tunnel and along the road to the central district of Mercato, the rich Vomero and, fate, the beautiful beaches of Ischia.


Call me by your name by André Aciman

Luca Guadagnino's 2017 Oscar-winning film is a perfectly accurate construction of the novel to come this age, but to cut costs, the director shot it in locations near his house - and stripped a Superb number of scenes. The book is located on the coast near the French border - and the shimmering Ligurian Sea is almost a character in its own right. You feel the hot pebbles on your bare feet as the young protagonists (Elio and Oliver) ride their bikes on the sunny sands, the shock of an iced drink in a shaded garden. . One important setting is the Monet setting, a secluded cliff area that Elio proclaims where the Impressionist draws the views of Bordighera (the postcard hanging in Oliver Oliver's study for decades afterward).


A room with a view of EM Forster

The 1908 Forster novel recounts the joy of getting rid of Blighty's cold for impatient Italy. The experience of Ingénue Lucy HoneyLog in Florence is that the (noisy speeds of Fiats and Vespas) have changed little: Duomo is impressed by the dark interior, the bank of the Arno where she walks with George Emerson. And the best view was of Fiesole on the hill, where Lucy fell on the terrace covered with violets and in her husband's arms. After the second half mainly in Surrey, the book of happy whispers brings us back to Florence, where Lucy is on a honeymoon by the window of the stolen Bertolini pension - in a certain perspective.


The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant

Returning to Florence from the Medici with this fascinating story of Alessandra, she finds her way to a city locked by the enthusiasm of base priest Girolamo Savonarola. Dunant details rivalry, politics and drama inside the family palace - in a new wealthy neighborhood east of the Duomo, residents can run by torches in large iron baskets to get to laggards But in the In pursuit of love and art, the heroine, unusually for a young woman, has also traveled the city in all its splendor, its devastation, its summer heat and the plague.


Goodbye a weapon to Ernest Hemingway

Trieste barely appeared on the radar that shattered British cities before this millennium, but I lived there for a while as a student, and I am delighted to find this new host. Poorly located in the limestone hills north of the city. Dramatic love story of the First World War between an American paramedic and an English nurse taking us from Friuli to a hospital in Milan, returning to the front and escaping through a film action through the Tagươngento river near d 'Udine, before an emotional finale in Switzerland. The ban on the Mussolini regime is an additional recommendation.


Enchanting April by Elizabeth von Arnim

It seems as appealing as it does today when this book was published in 1922: People who enjoy wistaria and the sun. The small medieval Italian castle on the shores of the Mediterranean will be furnished for April. The women tried to make England humble and dismal, older than Lucy Honey sounds, and fought. There is no point in leaving and having fun, he said one thing, because we will come back much more pleasantly. Carrying the sexy descriptions of the castle, the gardens and olive groves leading to the sea all excel in bright and vibrant colors.


The name of the rose by Umberto Eco

If you are driving from Turin to the west of the Alps, you may have discovered a majestic mountain peak, Sacra di San Michele. It was the Benedictine abbey that inspired Umberto Eco's first novel (published in 1980 and later filmed with Sean Connery and Christian Slater), even if for me it also reminded me of my spirit. Pomposa Abbey near Ferrara and hundreds of other medieval stacks. The best-selling and excellent academic writer transmits sculptures and frescoes through the way they amaze the mind of the young Adso. This mixture of history and mystery is an easy way to read in Eco's works, on love, learning and the search for meaning, while evoking the ancient world and the dramatic landscapes created by Italy. . Very good.

Donna Leon's Acqua Alta

With the bodies discovered in the canals, the piazzas and even the opera La Fenice, Venice by Commissario Guido Brunetti, a bit like Inspector Morse, Oxford, an incredibly attractive murder rate. All of the 29-year-old detective novels by Donna Leon are located in or near the city in which she has lived for decades and have a fiery fan base everywhere except Italy (they have never been translated into Italian). Lovers of La Serenissima in the place with few tourists will love this story which takes place in the dark weather of February, with the arrival of Ala (flood) in the city (as happened last fall ). ). With food even more important than life and death in Italy, the book opens openly with opera singer Flavia in her kitchen, slicing onions, garlic, tomatoes and two eggplants. fat.


Deceived by Michael Dibdin

Umbria was called Tuscany just 20 years ago, but its capital, the underrated capital of Perugia, is still underestimated, despite budget flights to San Francesco airport in Assisi. The best-selling crime writer Dibdin lends himself to the city as a college English teacher in the 1980s and in that, his first Aurelio Zen novel, the surprising Venetian detective is sent to the city known for chocolates, Etruscans, fat painters, grammar, Foreigners University, and sportswear. I can recommend all of Dibdin 11's complex, satirical and sometimes surreal Zen books, because each one is placed in a different part of Italy: the great Vendetta in Sardinia, or A Long. the vineyards of the Piemonte region.