Michele Masneri

Paradiso

Translated from Italian by Richard Village

ITALY

ISBN: 978-1-917544-06

IDuring one of the hottest summers anyone can remember, journalist Federico Desideri is sent on an assignment: to interview Italy’s latest Oscar-winning film director. But in Rome. A world away from the reassuring familiarity of his native Milan.

When the director turns out to be elusive, and the Romans as rough as their reputation, Federico falls in with Barry Volpicelli, a seductive, fast-talking, America-obsessed rogue and supposed inspiration for the winning movie’s lead character. Instead of nailing the interview, he finds himself in Paradiso— a crumbling seaside estate with an eccentric cast of inhabitants who seem frozen in time.

Combining the style and charm of Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty with the wit of Alan Bennett, this social comedy for the social media generation is a blisteringly funny exploration of reality, illusion and the enduring myth of the Eternal City.

“The book everyone is talking about. By our sharpest writer, who is a cynical as he is tender.” LUCA GUANAGNINO (DIRECTOR OF CALL ME BY YOUR NAME)

"Rome, a centrifugal city, reveals itself to those who narrate it from the outside and offers its truth or illusion if we just move away from it. This is also true in Michele Masneri’s novel Paradiso." IL VENERDÍ DE REPUBBLICA

“A darkly comic journey through into the Roman night, among eccentric characters and disenchanted glamour” CORRIERE DELLA SERA

“Blending the deeply comic with a meta awareness of Italy’s cinematic and literary heritage, Paradiso creates a world that is suffocating, and self-referential, perhaps really a purgatory.” BIRDMAN MAGAZINE