The City of the Living: A literary chronicle narrating one of the most vicious crimes in recent Roman history

(Hardback)

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For fans of Truman Capote and Emmanuel Carrere

In March 2016, in an apartment on the outskirts of Rome, two "ordinary" young men brutally tortured and murdered twenty-two-year-old Luca Varani. News of the seemingly inexplicable crime sent shockwaves across Rome and beyond.

After the crime comes to light, Lagioia begins investigating the crime by meeting with the victim's family and corresponding with one of the killers. It soon becomes clear, however, that to investigate this crime means to descend into the darkest corners of Rome and of the human psyche.

Lagioia leads us through a maze of betrayed expectations, sexual confusion, economic grievances and identity crises to locate the breaking point, the point after which anything is possible.

Sharp, hypnotic, devastating, The City of The Living is not just the story of a crime, but of human nature itself: the tension between responsibility and guilt, between the drive to oppress and the desire to be free, between who we are and who we can become.

Reviews

'Literature at its best - literature that breathes life into the facts of reality.' - Domenico Starnone, author of Ties and Tricks

'Reading some books can be an experience as extreme as the story they tell... This is the case with Nicola Lagioia's The City of the Living.' - La Repubblica

'A magnificent panorama of Rome, dark and rotting.'- Domani

'Lagioia reveals a flair for social satire, suggesting that Bari itself is complicit in the woe of its habitants, so keen to maintain a sense of swaggering "untouched privilege" at any cost.' - Financial Times (on Ferocity)

Author Bio

One of Italy's most critically acclaimed contemporary novelists, Nicola Lagioia has been the recipient of the Volponi, Straniero, and Viareggio awards. In 2015, he won the Strega Prize for Ferocity. He has been a jury member of the Venice Film Festival and is the program director of the Turin Book Fair.
Ann Goldstein has translated into English all of Elena Ferrante's books, including The Story of the Lost Child, which was also shortlisted for the Booker International Prize. She has been honoured with a Guggenheim Fellowship and is the recipient of the PEN Renato Poggioli Translation Award. She lives in New York.