A Girl Returned

• A young girl who must return to her biological parents in a home with a very particular, old-fashioned upbringing, typical of parents lacking parenting skills. After having enjoyed comfort, indulgence, and a house by the sea, the protagonist must face this return and the questions surrounding her crushing abandonment.

• It is a sad story about the barren life of an uprooted girl. Very impressively and without sentimentality, author Donatella di Pietrantonio lets the Arminuta narrate her grief and inability to comprehend this drastic upheaval in her life.

• I was almost hypnotised by its incredibly unsentimental narrative. Although Di Pietrantonio uses a seemingly direct and unadorned language, she's able to brilliantly evoke the narrator's world. However stark and unpleasant, everything was depicted in such a sharp and vivid way that I was entranced even by those scenes which held no beauty.

• Anne Goldstein's translation is spare yet evocative, the characters are nuanced and complex, and tension is maintained throughout the work. While the story is heavy, there is a light touch which creates the feel of an easy read. Di Pietrantonio sparingly threads snippets from the future into her story to show how this time period shapes the narrator's life. Despite it's slim size, this compelling read delves into the themes of class and family.

• The theme that sets the novel’s universe spinning is abandonment. In the mind of a lesser novelist, it would be easy to linger on and exhaust this subject, but in Di Pietrantonio’s world, abandonment is turned into resilience. And despite its mostly dark subject matter, the novel has an undercurrent of fortitude and hope that makes it one of the most profound books of the year.

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