There is no word for whistle-blower in Italian, though you can absolutely chiudere un’occhio (turn a blind eye). In all areas of public life – community, education, employment – your connections are everything. ‘Italian Life’ is a particular reckoning with a beloved adopted country. It takes place in a university in the north. Valeria, a talented young woman from hot, dusty Basilicata, enrols together with thousands of others for a degree course that could take anything between three and ten years to complete, given the vagaries of the system. She has sacrificed a great deal to get here. However, as both Valeria and her rich supporting cast of students and professors will soon discover, there are dark and capricious forces at the institution’s heart.

Author Tim Parks Published by Vintage ISBN 9781529112580 EAN 9781529112580 Bic Code Cover Paperback