The Beautiful Summer

'An astonishing portrait of an innocent on the verge of discovering the cruelties of love... an inimitable read.. there are whispers here of the future work of Elena Ferrante' - Elizabeth Strout, from the introduction Life was a perpetual holiday in those days... It's the height of summer in 1930s Italy and sixteen-year-old Ginia is desperate for adventure. So begins a fateful friendship with Amelia, a stylish and sophisticated artist's model who envelops her in a dazzling new world of bohemian artists and intoxicating freedom. Under the spell of her new friends, Ginia soon falls in love with Guido, an enigmatic young painter. It's the start of a desperate love affair, charged with false hope and overwhelming passion - destined to last no longer than the course of a summer. The Beautiful Summer is a gorgeous coming-of-age tale of lost innocence and first love, by one of Italy's greatest writers, an author described by Susan Sontag as, 'one of the few essential novelists of the mid-twentieth century'. Published originally in 1949, the novel won the Strega Prize for fiction in 1950, Italy's most prestigious literary award, and remains a landmark work of European fiction.