Nicola Lagioia
Nicola Lagioia was born in Bari and lives in Rome. His novel, Ferocity, won the 2015 Strega Prize, Italy’s most prestigious literary award; his books have also won the Volponi, Straniero and Viareggio literary awards, and in 2010 he was named one of Italy’s best writers under 40. The author of three novels and one collection of short stories, Lagioia is a contributor to Italy’s most prominent culture pages and a regular host of Pagina3, Italian national radio’s book and culture program. For many years, Lagioia has also worked as an editor at the Italian publisher, Minimum Fax.
Ferocity
Bari, the 1980s. On a stifling summer’s night, on the outskirts of a southern Italian metropolis, a young woman named Clara the daughter of the region’s most prominent family of real estate developers stumbles naked, dazed and bloodied down a major highway. Her death is immediately labelled a suicide. Her estranged half-brother, however, cannot free himself from her memory or the questions surrounding her passing, and the more he learns about Clara’s life, the more he uncovers the moral decay at the core of his family’s ascent to social prominence.
At once an intimate family saga and a cinematic portrait of the moral and political corruption of an entire society, Lagioia’s English-language debut is an ambitious, gripping work by one of Italy’s foremost literary novelists.
Nicola Lagioia’s appearance is made possible by the Istituto di Italiano di Cultura in Toronto.