Dispute Over a Very Italian Piglet - by Amara Lakhous (Paperback)

About the Book

Translation of: Contesa per un maialino italianissimo a San Salvario.

Book Synopsis

An Italian journalist gets wrapped up in the criminality and cultural controversies of modern Turin in this "very funny" satirical novel (The New York Times).

It's October 2006. The northern Italian town of Turin has been rocked by a series of murders involving Albanians and Romanians, and journalist Enzo Laganà is determined to get to the bottom of the crime wave--even if he must invent a few sources to do so. But first he's been conscripted to mediate the issue of a pig running loose in a mosque.Gino the pig belongs to Enzo's Nigerian immigrant neighbor, Joseph. The Muslim community wants Gino killed, an animal rights group wants him saved, and Joseph is pleading his pig's innocence. As Enzo navigates various calamities large and small, he scrambles to keep track of his lies even as he uncovers some uncomfortable truths about contemporary, multicultural Italy.

"This very funny novel examines a town's heightened ignorance and hostility toward foreigners, and what it means to be a "true" Italian, even if the native in question is a small pig."--The New York Times

Review Quotes

"French and British literature have long been enriched by the biculturalism of authors like Tahar Ben Jelloun, Amin Maalouf, Gaitam Malkani and Monica Ali. With talented new writers like Lakhous...Italy is closing the gap."--"The New York Times"

"Do we have an Italian Camus on our hands? Just possibly . . . No recent Italian novel so elegantly and directly confronts the 'new Italy.'"--"Philadelphia Inquirer"

"The author's real subject [in "Clash of..."] is the heave and crush of modern, polyglot Rome, and he renders the jabs of everyday speech with such precision that the novel feels exclaimed rather than written."--"The New Yorker"

"What's memorable about Lakhous' "Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio" is what he shows us of an often inward-looking nation confronting the teeming vibrancy of multicultural life."--"NPR's Fresh Air"

"["Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio "is] a satirical, enigmatic take on the racial tensions that afflict present-day Europe."--"Brooklyn Rail"

About the Author

Amara Lakhous was born in Algiers in 1970. He has a degree in philosophy from the University of Algiers and another in cultural anthropology from the University la Sapienza, Rome. Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio (Europa Editions, 2008) was awarded Italy's prestigious Flaiano prize and was described by the Seattle Times as a "wonderfully offbeat novel."