Author:
Ilaria Bernardini
Publishing house:
Mondadori
Date of publication:
30-01-2018

The enchanting story of two women who overcame fear and pain by cultivating an urban forest together. A universal recipe for when life feels sterile. A botanical account of closeness and care.

Anna is mourning the end of her love-she and Nico’s dad are breaking up-when she meets Maria by chance. As they chat, Maria begins to feel sick, very sick. Anna calls for help; later it will be discovered that she had an aneurysm. They will spend a long summer of recovery together, but how do you relearn how to live after realizing how close the end is? Around the two women only drought and fear, even the plants on the terrace of Anna’s house are all half-dead. Until they begin to take care of it together, and as the plants grow lushly, the two begin to get to know each other, to care for each other’s loneliness, and, just like the terrace, this story turns into a forest, so joyous and wild that it contains the vicissitudes of Anna’s entire eccentric family, so extensive that it reaches as far as London, where her new love lives. Ilaria Bernardini has drawn on a private affair-illness, the end of a marriage, a child to protect-to bring to life a powerful poetic universe in which words sprout like branches and leaves.

Foreign Editions

Translation rights:

Grijalbo (Spain)