Praise
Extras
Brad Listi hosted Andrea Bajani on his podcast Otherppl! Their conversation is available now. It has also been featured on Lithub Radio.
Translated from Italian by Elizabeth Harris
Published: 3/23/2021
Paperback ISBN: 9781939810960
Ebook ISBN: 9781939810977
A sly, prismatic novel that Jhumpa Lahiri says “accumulates with the quiet urgency of a snowstorm,” by Andrea Bajani, whom Michael Cunningham calls “a true original.” If You Kept a Record of Sins records the indelible marks a mother leaves on her son after she abandons their home in Italy for a business she’s building in Romania. Lorenzo, just a young boy when his mother leaves, recalls the incisive fragments of their life – when they would playfully wrestle each other, watch the sunrise, or test out his mother’s mysterious, mythical invention. Now a young man, Lorenzo travels to Romania for his mother’s funeral and reflects on the strangeness of today’s Europe, which masks itself as a beacon of Western civilization while iniquity and exploitation run rampant. With elliptical, piercing prose, Bajani tells a story of abandonment and initiation, of sentimental education and shattered illusions, of unconditional love.
An audiobook edition is available here.
Brad Listi hosted Andrea Bajani on his podcast Otherppl! Their conversation is available now. It has also been featured on Lithub Radio.