Lead Review

  • Book: The Time In Between
  • Location: Nuoro, Sardinia
  • Author: Marcello Fois, Silvester Mazzarella (translator)

Review Author: tripfiction

Location

Content

How must it feel when you have been in an orphanage and your real identity is given to you only as a young man? An old document is all that proves who you are. And thus Vincenzo Chironi sets off on an odyssey to Sardinia to track down his grandparents, at a time when war is ravaging people and places in the Eastern front and across Europe and the occasional fighter plane buzzes overhead.

This is a country that has suffered under a fascist regime and there is a real sense of a distant and dark drum beat as the Vincenzo Chironi makes his way Nuoro.

This is very much a story of Vincenzo’s journey through life, both metaphorical and actual, and what this author does brilliantly is evoke both time and place, through lyrical and sensitive prose. It is of course beautifully translated by Silvers Mazzarella who has, I believe, captured the raw and rugged sense of the island and the islanders, and woven in elements of relevant Italian history. It is a novel that has real texture and lyricism.

If you love Sardinia and you love creatively penned prose, then this is a series (following on from Bloodlines) that is worth your time.

Back to book

Sign up to receive our e-newsletter

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.