Ilaria, or the Conquest of Disobedience - by Gabriella Zalapì (Paperback)

About the Book

Originally published in French as Ilaria ou la conquete de la desobeissance in 2024 by Editions Zoe, Geneva

Book Synopsis

Kidnapped by her troubled father, a young girl navigates life on a road trip across 1980s Italy in this stunning, cinematic English-language debut.

One day in May 1980, 8-year-old Ilaria gets into her father's car after school. As they stop at a series of highway hotels, traversing the north of Italy, the child thinks of her mother and promises herself not to cry anymore. She learns to drive and to lie, discovers Trieste, Bologna, a boarding school in Rome, a sunny rural life in Sicily.

Thanks to the games they play, the hit songs they sing at the tops of their voices on the road, and the kind people Ilaria meets along the way, the kidnapping almost seems like a normal childhood. But her father drinks too much, nervous in a cloud of cigarette smoke. If he takes her by the hand, she thinks it's better not to pull it away. Ilaria observes and feels everything.

In gripping, precise prose, this poignant novel takes us inside the mind of a little girl who must grow up on her own.

Review Quotes

"A propulsive coming-of-age story set against the political violence of Italy's Years of Lead...Zalapì sketches a clear and sensitive portrait of her young narrator...This leaves a mark." --Publishers Weekly

"A nuanced portrayal of a child's lost years with a flawed and irresponsible parent." --Kirkus Reviews

"The story captivates the reader with a precision as minimalist as it is disarming." --Vogue (France)

"A deeply moving novel about family love and its contradictions, the end of innocence, and the disobedience of a young girl looking for freedom." --Elle (France)

"A story tinged with dread but, above all, bursting with sensitivity." --Le Monde

About the Author

Gabriella Zalapì is a visual artist of English, Italian, and Swiss origin who lives in Paris. Trained at the Haute école d'art et de design in Geneva, she draws her material from her own family history, taking photographs, archives, and memories and combining them in a disturbing interplay between history and fiction. Her debut novel, Antonia, won the Grand prix de l'héroïne Madame Figaro and the Prix Bibliomedia.

Adriana Hunter studied French and Drama at the University of London. She has translated more than ninety books, including Marc Petitjean's The Heart: Frida Kahlo in Paris and Hervé Le Tellier's The Anomaly and Eléctrico W, winner of the French-American Foundation's 2013 Translation Prize in Fiction. She lives in Kent, England.