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Book Cover for: The Celestial City, Diego Marani

The Celestial City

Diego Marani

A young man plunges into student life, in flight from an overbearing father, in search of an identity of his own making. He is like everyone else in his quest for a future he cannot yet understand. His experiences, often comic, always innocently human, are an exploration of the concept of boundaries. But in choosing to study in Trieste, a city of many-layered histories and ethnicities, a city of brilliant sunshine and ferocious gales, he finds that life, and love, throw him more questions than answers.

It is a tale of Everyman, but more than that: in the hands of Diego Marani, author of the celebrated New Finnish Grammar, this wry and affecting novel leads the reader on a nostalgic and thought-provoking journey made wholly individual by its evocation of place - the celestial city of Trieste.

'I did not think that one could weep for a city. But at that time I did not know that cities are women, one can fall in love with them and never forget them.'

Book Details

  • Publisher: Dedalus
  • Publish Date: Sep 1st, 2024
  • Pages: 208
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.40in - 4.90in - 0.80in - 0.40lb
  • EAN: 9781915568229
  • Categories: LiteraryComing of AgeWorld Literature - Italy

About the Author

Marani, Diego: - Diego Marani was born in Tresigallo, a village near Ferrara in 1959. He studied at the university of Trieste and has been working in Brussels for the European Union as the officer in charge of Cultural Diplomacy until 2021. He has been director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris until April 2023.
He writes columns for various European newspapers about current affairs in Europanto, a language that he has invented. His collection of short stories in Europanto, Las Adventures des Inspector Cabillot has been published by Dedalus.
He has published 12 books in Italian.
Anderson, Graham: - Graham Anderson was born in London. After reading French and Italian at Cambridge, he worked on the books pages of City Limits and reviewed fiction for The Independent and The Sunday Telegraph. As a translator, he has developed versions of French plays, both classic and contemporary, for the NT and the Gate Theatre, with performances both in the UK and in the USA. For Dedalus he has translated 10 books, 5 from Italian and 5 from French.

More books by Diego Marani

Book Cover for: New Finnish Grammar, Diego Marani
Book Cover for: Las Adventures Des Inspector Cabillot, Diego Marani
Book Cover for: The Interpreter, Diego Marani
Book Cover for: The Last of the Vostyachs, Diego Marani
Book Cover for: God's Dog, Diego Marani

Praise for this book

"It's all quite charming and amusing, though of course in its arc and many of its elements all quite familiar. Marani has a sure enough hand that he easily shapes this into an engaging read, making for a nice little melancholy- and nostalgia-tinged read." - M.A.Orthofer in The Complete Review