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A Novel
At once a bittersweet comedy and a drama of racial identity, this book brings to life the hilarious imbroglios of the modern metropolis.
Piazza Vittorio is home to a polyglot community of immigrants who have come to Rome from all over the world. But when a tenant is murdered in the building's elevator, the delicate balance is thrown into disarray. With language as colorful as the neighborhood it describes, each character in this choral novel takes their turn "giving evidence," and the stories that emerge provide an all-access pass into the most fascinating of Roman neighborhoods.
"This short but nearly flawless novel offers an intriguing and satisfying blend of crime and literary fiction." —Booklist
"Intriguing psychological and social insight alongside a playful whodunit plot, exposing the power of fear, racial prejudice and cultural misconception to rob a neighborhood of its humanity." —Publishers Weekly
"An Italian noir-comedy-satire, written by an Algerian, that effectively breaks rules and has a good time doing it." —Shelf Awareness
This information about Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Amara Lakhous was born in 1970 in Algiers, the sixth of nine children. His parents were Berbers, and they sent him to a Koran school for four years where he learned classical Arabic. He learned French at junior school, which meant that he had the role of mediating between his Algerian and his French relatives. After finishing school decided to study at the Faculty for Philosophy in Algiers, where he also delved into the roots of his Algerian identity, religion, the civil war and systems of male superiority. In 1995, with a manuscript in his luggage, he moved to Rome.
Lakhous earned a second degree at the University La Sapienza in Cultural Anthropology. His first manuscript, which he had written in Arabic when he was 23, was published in 1999 in a bilingual edition: Le cimici e il ...
... Full Biography
Link to Amara Lakhous's Website
Name Pronunciation
Amara Lakhous: Lahk-house
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