Tuesday 11 November, 6.30pm
The Night Trembles by Nadia Terranova
The author in conversation with Lucy Jones
Moderated by Rosie Goldsmith
Two stories converge in the aftermath of the devastating 1908 earthquake in Sicily and Calabria: a young woman sees a chance to avoid her impending arranged marriage and a boy manages to escape from the influence of an abusive mother on the verge of madness.
“There is something stronger than pain, and that is habit.” Eleven-year-old Nicola knows this well. Each night he is tied up in the cellar by his mother, the wife of Calabria’s biggest bergamot producer. There he waits for the sun to rise, and with it a sliver of freedom. On the other side of the sea, Barbara has just arrived in Messina and plans to escape her father, who pulls her towards marriage with a man she does not love. Liberty will be granted to both, but it will come at a very high price.
On December 28th, 1908, the earth shakes. Europe’s most devastating earthquake razes the cities of Messina and Reggio Calabria and, along with them, everything Nicola and Barbara have known. From the ruins, each must piece back together a life and start anew. Written in Nadia Terranova’s distinctively lyric style, The Night Trembles is a melancholic ode to human resilience and the promise of the unknown.
A new award-winning novel from the author of Farewell Ghosts, a finalist for the 2019 Premio Strega, translated by Ann Goldstein.
Nadia Terranova has said of Lucy Jones: “I was deeply impressed by Lucy Jones’s book, Matrescence: scientific, dreamlike, narrative, and memoir-like all at once, with an exhilarating style. It’s the book I wish I had read when I was expecting my daughter, and it dialogues profoundly with my latest Quello che so di te,but it also speaks with The Night Trembles and the mothers of the last century”.
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Nadia Terranova (Messina, 1978) is the author of Gli anni al contrario (Italy: Einaudi Stile Libero), Casca il mondo (Mondadori, 2016) and Bruno, il bambino che imparò a volare (Orecchio Acerbo, 2012), Farewell Ghosts (2018), finalist at the Premio Strega. She also writes for the Italian newspaper la Repubblica. She has recently reviewed Matrescence by Lucy Jones for La Stampa.
Lucy Jones is a journalist and author. She speaks about her research areas and teach writing workshops. Her latest book Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood was published by Allen Lane in June 2023 and by Knopf/Pantheon in the US in May 2024. A number of translations are forthcoming.
Rosie Goldsmith is an award-winning journalist specializing in arts and foreign affairs. She is Founder and Director of the European Literature Network, Editor-in-Chief of The Riveter magazine and Artistic Director of the European Writers’ Festival.