Tuesday 17 June, 6.30pm
Chiara Valerio in conversation about her new book
The Little I Knew (Foundry Editions)
with Olivia Laing
A small Italian town, two women, and too much left unsaid – Virginia Woolf meets Elena Ferrante in this finely crafted, absorbing novel.
Translated from Italian by Ailsa Wood
An Italian bestseller & instant classic, shortlisted for the 2024 Premio Strega.
In Scauri, a small seaside town outside Rome, Vittoria dies unexpectedly in her bath. The townsfolk meet the event with sombrely respectful southern Italian silence, but Lea, the town lawyer, wants to investigate. Who was Vittoria? Why had she mysteriously arrived in Scauri thirty years earlier? And was her relationship with Lea all that it seemed?In this unforgettable novel, reverberations from the past catch up with present. Through silences and hidden clues, Vittoria’s story is revealed and everything – passions, emotions, and relationships – changes forever. In a world where understanding is always shifting and incomplete, this is a gripping and insightful exploration of the ever-changing horizon of human connection.
A huge hit & instant bestseller from Italian literary superstar Chiara Valerio – novelist, editor, cultural commentator and mathematician –The Little I Knew (Chi dice e chi tace) comes to English audiences for the first time.
With echoes of Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse (Valerio translates Virginia Woolf), Elena Ferrante’s razor-sharp psychological depth and closely observed characters, and Ruth Rendell’s suspenseful, socially aware storytelling, this book is the heir to women’s writing in both the Italian and English traditions, and one of the most exciting Italian books for a generation.
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Chiara Valerio was born in Scauri in 1978 and lives in Rome. She has published essays, novels and shorts stories, such as La gioia piccola d’esser quasi salvi (nottetempo 2009), Spiaggia libera tutti (Laterza 2010), Il cuore non si vede (Einaudi 2019), La matematica è politica (Einaudi 2020), Nessuna scuola mi consola (Einaudi 2021), Così per sempre (Einaudi 2022), La tecnologia è religione (Einaudi 2023). She is the Italian fiction editor at Marsilio and works for Rai Radio 3. She is also a contributor to La Repubblica, L’Espresso and Vanity Fair
Olivia Laing, an English writer and literary critic, writing for The Guardian, New Statesman, and Frieze, has recently published The Garden Against Time (Picador) – Il giardino contro il tempo (Il Saggiatore), a book about nature, literature, and personal rebirth. From the care of an abandoned garden in Suffolk to reflections on Milton, John Clare, and William Morris, the author explores the transformative power of gardening. Olivia has also written four more works of non-fiction, To the River, The Trip to Echo Spring, The Lonely City, Everybody, as well as an essay collection, Funny Weather, and a novel, Crudo. In 2018, they were awarded the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for non-fiction and in 2019, the 100th James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Crudo. In 2019 they became an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.