The book
In this courageous, inventive, and intelligent novel, Viola di Grado tells the story of a suicide and what follows. She has given voice to an astonishing vision of life after life, portraying the awful longing and sense of loss that plague the dead, together with the solitude provoked by the impossibility of communicating. The afterlife itself is seen as a dark, seething place where one is preyed upon by the cruel and unrelenting elements. The Hollow Heart will frighten as it provokes, enlighten as it causes concern. If ever there were a novel that follows Kafka’s prescription for a book to be a axe for the frozen sea within us, it is the Hollow Heart.
The author
Viola Di Grado
Viola Di Grado was born in Catania, Italy. She now lives and studies in London. 70% Acrylic 30% Wool, winner of the 2011 Campiello First Novel Award and a finalist for Italy's most prestigious literary prize, The Strega, is her first book.
Press
- Dec 22 2015
Nota Benes
— World Literature Today - Sep 9 2015
BookSexy Review: “Di Grado’s writing is so lovely at times it makes you ache.” - Sep 1 2015
Bookslut: “Hollow Heart is a ruthless and comical meditation on the subject of death in the twenty-first century by one of Italy's most experimental and fearless new voices.” - Aug 10 2015
Music & Literature: "Viola Di Grado’s charming prose romps through chthonic worlds of nibbling insects, ammoniac seepage and shattering depression, using language that is both glib and scrumptious." - Jul 22 2015
L.A. Review of Books: “In Hollow Heart, Di Grado elegantly and playfully thematizes the emptiness of unquestioned vessels of meaning (which is to say, words) with the story of a girl who has taken her own life before she has even really lived it.” - Jul 15 2015
San Francisco Chronicle article: “A selection of first sentences from new books."