Last Summer in the City
A cult classic of Italian literature, published in English for the first time, with an afterword by André Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name.
'A masterpiece' - Le Figaro
'Dazzling in every detail' - Elle
In the late 1960s, Leo Gazzara leads a precarious life in Rome. He spends his time in an alcoholic haze, bouncing between bars, uninspiring jobs, romantic entanglements and the homes of his rich friends. Leo drifts, aimless and alone.
But on the evening of his thirtieth birthday, he meets Arianna. All night they drive the city in Leo’s run-down Alfa Romeo, talking and talking. They eat brioche for breakfast, drink through the dawn, drive to the sea and back. A whirlwind beginning.
What follows is the story of the year Leo fell in love and lost everything.
Intense, romantic, and devastating, Last Summer in the City is a forgotten classic of Italian literature which offers an intoxicating portrait of two lonely people, pushing and pulling each other away and back again.
'The most beautiful love story of the year' - Il Giornale
Gianfranco Calligarich was born in Asmara, Eritrea, and grew up in Milan before moving to Rome where he worked as a journalist and screenwriter. He wrote many successful TV shows for Rai, the national public broadcasting company of Italy, and founded the Teatro XX Secolo in 1994. He is author of many novels, including La malinconia dei Crusich, which was the winner of the Viareggio Rèpaci Prize. Last Summer in the City is the first of his novels to be translated into English.
Howard Curtis lives in Norwich, and has translated more than a hundred books from French, Italian and Spanish.