Niccolo Ammaniti

Winner of the prestigious 2001 Viareggio-Repaci Prize for Fiction. 1978, the hottest summer of the twentieth century. In a tiny Italian rural community, the adults shelter indoors while six children venture out on their bikes across the scorched, deserted countryside. In the midst of a sea of golden wheat, nine-year-old Michele Amitrano discovers a secret so momentous, so terrible, that...

Lorenzo has a few issues. They include the fact that he doesn't have, or want, any friends. Because this is making his parents unhappy, he tells them he has been invited on a skiing holiday with a group from school. In fact, he is planning to spend the week happily ensconced in the cellar of their apartment building with a...

In swampy Ischiano Scalo, the adults are all losers and the children dream of escape. Meek little Pietro is constantly struggling with the torments of school bullies and indifferent parents. His only comforts lie in his friendship with Gloria (the prettiest, richest girl for miles) and his favourite teacher, Flora. And even they may not be enough to stop the...

It is some years since a virus killed all the adults. Now Sicily lies in ruins while the disease lies in wait, poised to claim the children as they reach adolescence. Brave, stubborn thirteen-year-old Anna looks after her brother Astor in the cottage where their mother's skeleton rests, lovingly decorated, in a locked bedroom. She tells him fearsome stories about...

'How long's it been since we took the bloody oath?' Saverio shrugged. 'A few years.' Zombie pointed a grissino at his chief. 'In all this time, what have we ever accomplished?' 'All those things you promised... How many of them have we done?' Murder chimed in. 'You said we'd make loads of human sacrifices, but we haven't seen hide nor...

Thousands of depressed little towns, villages and hamlets dot the vast plain where Cristiano Zena lives with his hard-drinking father, Rino. Unfocused urban sprawl with no centre to look to and nothing to look forward to. Rino Zena and his cronies Danilo and Quattro Formaggi are planning a ram raid on an ATM using a converted tractor. The wary, adoring...