Europa Editions A Sister’s Story Di Pietrantonio Donatella

Without warning or explanation, a 13-year-old girl is sent away from the family she has always thought of as hers to live with her birth family: a large, chaotic household that is anything but welcoming. Thus begins a new life, one of struggle, tension, and conflict, especially between the girl and her mother. But in her relationship with her newly acquired sister Adriana, she will find the strength to start again and build a new and enduring sense of self • Told with great immediacy and intensity A Girl Returned is a powerful novel rendered with sensitivity and verve by Ann Goldstein, translator of the works of Elena Ferrante. Set against the stark landscape of Abruzzo, it tells a compelling story about mothers and daughters, about families and responsibilities

Лила недавно вышла замуж и взяла на себя управление семейным бизнесом, в то время как Элена продолжила учиться и исследовать мир за пределами родного района, который начинает казаться ей удушающим. Любовь, ревность, семья, свобода, обязательства и, прежде всего, дружба – вот что сейчас в приоритете для обеих подруг • Брак загнал Лилу в ловушку. Элена ломается под давлением окружающих. Однако их связь крепнет с каждым днем, позволяя им преодолевать сложные жизненные ситуации • «История нового имени» – это второй книга итальянской писательницы Элены Ферранты из цикла «Неаполитанский квартет» • По мотивам цикла был снят сериал «Моя гениальная подруга» • Книга на английском языке • The Story of a New Name, the second book of the Neapolitan Quartet, picks up the story where My Brilliant Friend left off

Элена и Лила повзрослели. У них есть возлюбленные и мужья, дети и пожилые родители. Но дружба продолжает оставаться центром их жизней. Обе женщины пытались оставить позади родной район, где они были узницами конформизма, насилия и незыблемых табу. Элена вышла замуж и создала семью, уехала во Флоренцию и написала несколько успешных книг. В последнем романе она вновь возвращается в Неаполь, он словно притягивает ее своим странным обаянием. Лиле же так и не удалось вырваться из родного города. Она стала предпринимательницей и многого добилась на этом поприще, но успех привел её в мир кумовства, шовинизма, насилия и преступности, угрожавших их окружению. И близость к миру, который она всегда отвергала, приводит её к роли его неофициального лидера

Diane is raised by a mother so plagued by jealousy of her own daughter that she is incapable of showing affection to her. Despite this, Diane grows up to become a brilliant young woman who rejects societal expectations. She forges her own path, dismissing suitors and pursuing her dream of becoming a cardiologist. At university, she befriends the assistant professor Olivia. Intelligent and cold, Olivia’s ambition and need to feel superior to others drags Diane down to a dark place • This is the story of Diane’s relationships with other women: her best friend, the sweet Elisabeth; her mentor, the selfish Olivia; her sister, the coddled Celia; and, of course, her mother, Marie. Nothomb balances light-hearted observations with crushing revelations, exposing the spectrum of female bonds

A poignant bestselling novel full of French charm and memorable characters • Violette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. Her daily life is lived to the rhythms of the hilarious and touching confidences of random visitors and her colleagues • Violette’s routine is disrupted one day by the arrival of a local police chief, Julien Seul, who insists on depositing the ashes of his mother on the gravesite of a complete stranger. The grave Julien is looking for, and his mother’s story of clandestine love, is intertwined with Violette’s own secret past • The funny, moving, intimately told story of a woman who believes obstinately in happiness, Fresh Water for Flowers brings out the exceptional and the poetic in the ordinary

From her home in Paris, Lina recalls the story of three women whose lives unfold in the conservative city of Barranquilla in Colombia. Amongst parties at the Country Club and strolls along the promenade in Puerto Colombia, unfurls a story of sensuality supressed by violence; a narrative of oppression in which Dora, Catalina and Beatriz are victims of a patriarchal system living in and among the fragile threads of the fabric of society • In Lina’s obsessive recounting of the past, this masterful novel transforms anecdotes of a life into an absolute view of the world, a profound panorama of Colombian society towards the end of the 50s • Written from personal memories and historical research, this is a novel that is both precise and poetic, a novel that immortalises—from the distant perspective of its narrator—the events that took place in a small seaside town

A sweeping story about obsession, mysticism, art, and earthly desire • At the centre of this story, is the Cathedral. Its design and construction in the 12th and 13th centuries in the fictional town of Hagenburg unites a vast array of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are inseparable from the shifting political factions and economic interests vying for supremacy. From the bishop to his treasurer to local merchants and lowly stonecutters, everyone, even the town’s Jewish denizens, is implicated and affected by the slow rise of Hagenburg’s Cathedral, which in no way enforces morality or charity • Around this narrative core, Ben Hopkins has constructed his own monumental edifice, a choral novel that is rich with the vicissitudes of mercantilism, politics, religion, and human enterprise

A small culturally mixed community living an apartment building in the center of Rome is thrown into disarray when one of the neighbors is murdered. An investigation ensues and as each of the victim’s neighbors is questioned, the reader is offered an all-access pass into the most colorful neighborhood in contemporary Rome. Each character takes his or her turn center-stage, “giving evidence,” recounting his or her story—the dramas of emigration, the daily equivocations of immigration, the fears and misunderstandings of a life spent on society’s margins, abused by mainstream culture’s fears and indifference, preconceptions and insensitivity. What emerges is a touching story that is common to us all, whether we live in Rome or in Los Angeles • This novel is animated by a style that is as colorful as the neighborhood it describes and is characterized by seemingly effortless equipoise that borrows from the cinematic tradition of the commedia all'italiana, as exemplified by directors such as Federico Fellini and Mario Monicelli

This heartwarming story is about two unlikely friends who give each other the courage to do what they never thought possible. Through their trials and tribulations, they realize that they can always rely on each other to be there • Our story opens with Billie and Franck trapped in a gorge in the Cevennes Mountains. As Franck lies unconscious, Billie appeals to a star for protection by telling stories from their lives. Billie vividly recollects how her friendship with Franck changed her life and struggles with the idea that–thanks to her mistake–she might lose him forever • They met a decade prior when they were assigned as acting partners in class. For the first time, Billie felt someone respected her and Franck didn’t feel so alone. The blossoming of their friendship was comforting for both pitted against the harsh realities they faced

A family story about the unbreakable connection between the living and the dead • Set in Iran in the decade following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, this moving, richly imagined novel is narrated by the ghost of Bahar, a thirteen-year-old girl, whose family is compelled to flee their home in Tehran for a new life in a small village, hoping in this way to preserve both their intellectual freedom and their lives. But they soon find themselves caught up in the post-revolutionary chaos that sweeps across their ancient land and its people. Bahar’s mother, after a tragic loss, will embark on a long, eventful journey in search of meaning • The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree speaks of the power of imagination when confronted with cruelty, and of our human need to make sense of trauma through the ritual of storytelling itself

Sabine dreams of living as an artist in Paris; Helene has grown up living between her middle-class aunt and uncle and her more modest parents; Mariette is learning the secrets of the crazy world around her. Daughters Beyond Command follows the evolution of a modest, Catholic family living in Aix-en-Provence between May 1968 and the momentous election of Francois Mitterrand in 1981 • The young Malvieri sisters watch on as French society changes and women gradually gain their freedom, while men seem to lose their way. The three each find their own means of succeeding in this new world and living an independent life, free from the morals, education and religion of their childhood. Their story resonates all the more poignantly as many of these freedoms, as established as we may have thought they were, are now under threat

A hauntingly beautiful novel about an unforgettable new heroine, and a story of undying love • Nives has recently lost her husband of fifty years. She didn’t cry when she found him dead in the pig pen, she didn’t cry at the funeral, but now loneliness has set in. When she decides to bring her favourite chicken inside for company, she is surprised to discover that the chicken’s company is a more than adequate replacement for her dead husband • But one day, Giacomina goes stiff in front of the tv. Unable to rouse the paralysed chicken, Nives has no choice but to call the town veterinarian, Loriano Bottai, an old acquaintance of hers. What follows is a phone call that seems to last a lifetime, a phone call that becomes a novel. Their conversation veers from the chicken to the past—to the life they once shared, the secrets they never had the courage to reveal, wounds that never healed