Born in Milan in 1975, Giuseppe Catozzella has studied philosophy and has contributed to various newspapers. After a long period spent in Australia, he returned to Milan, where he now works for a publishing company. He has published two collections of short stories, The Life Cycle of Fish (2011) and Fuego (2012), as well as Explants (2008) and Hive (2011), a novel about the Mafia in Milan that has been adapted for television and four different plays. His latest novel, Don’t Tell Me You Are Afraid, is being translated into English this fall. La partecipazione di Giuseppe Catozzella è resa possibile grazie al sostegno dell’Instituto di Cultura in Toronto.

Don’t Tell Me You Are Afraid

Giuseppe Catozzella tells the true story in the form of a novel of Samia Yusuf Omar, a young Somali athlete who, three years after participating in the Beijing Olympics in 2008, drowns off the coast of Sicily in an attempt to reach Europe to train for the 2012 London Olympics. The novel begins back in the late nineties, with the child Samia running through the streets of Mogadishu, a city torn apart by civil war and controlled by the fundamentalist militias of Al Shabab. Despite the dangers, prohibition and frustrations, Samia manages to establish herself as the fastest girl in Somalia. Success, however, will not prove enough to save her.