The Beautiful Summer

Description

In 1930s Italy a young girl falls in love for the first time, with devastating consequences; introduction by Elizabeth Strout 'Life was a perpetual holiday in those days...' It's the height of summer in 1930s Italy, and sixteen-year-old Ginia is desperate for adventure. So begins a fateful friendship with Amelia, a stylish and sophisticated artist's model who envelops her in a dazzling new world of bohemian artists and intoxicating freedom. Under the spell of her new friends, Ginia soon falls in love with Guido, an enigmatic young painter. It's the start of a desperate love affair, charged with false hope and overwhelming passion - destined to last no longer than the course of a summer. The Beautiful Summer is a gorgeous coming-of-age tale of lost innocence and first love, by one of Italy's greatest writers.

Cesare Pavese (Author) Cesare Pavese was born in 1908 in Santo Stefano Belbo, a village in the hills of Piedmont. He worked as a translator (of Melville, Joyce and Faulkner) and as an editor for the publishing house Einaudi Editore, while also publishing his own poetry and a string of successful novels, including The House on the Hill and The Moon and the Bonfires. Never actively anti-Fascist himself, he was nevertheless sent into internal exile in Calabria in 1935 for having aided other subversives. He killed himself in 1950, shortly after receiving Italy's most prestigious literary prize, the Strega. Elizabeth Strout (Introducer) Elizabeth Strout is the Pulitzer prize-winning author of Olive Kitteridge, as well as The Burgess Boys, a New York Times bestseller, Abide With Me and Amy and Isabelle, which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize. She lives in New York City and Portland, Maine.

An astonishing portrait of an innocent on the verge of discovering the cruelties of love... an inimitable read... there are whispers here of the future work of Elena Ferrante -- Elizabeth Strout, from the introduction One of the few essential novelists of the mid-twentieth century -- Susan Sontag There is never any doubt of Pavese's talent * The Times * [Pavese writes books of] extraordinary depth where one never stops finding new levels, new meanings -- Italo Calvino There is something about [Pavese] that is insinuating, haunting and lyrically pervasive * New York Times Book Review * Cesare Pavese's cool, contemplative voice was the most important among postwar Italian writers -- W. S. DiPiero Pavese, to me, is a constant source of inspiration -- Jhumpa Lahiri For my trip to Los Angeles, I'm packing Cesare Pavese's The Beautiful Summer, with an introduction by Elizabeth Strout, a slender account of love in 1930s Italy -- Jessie Burton, bestselling author of 'The Miniaturist' * Guardian Best Summer Books 2018 * Reminds one very much of the trajectory of the relationship between two young people at the heart of Andre Aciman's Call Me By Your Name * RTE Recommended Summer Reads * Penguin's re-release of Cesare Pavese's The Beautiful Summer (as choice a pick as its title implies) is simply gorgeous * Marie Claire - Best Books to Read This Summer * Pavese writes with a vivid quietude that is always engaging * Guardian * [A] remarkable author * Scotsman * We must be grateful to the Penguin European Writers series, a precious venture in these dark times -- John Banville