Luminously translated by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, Ties is the searing new novel by bestselling Italian novelist Domenico Starnone.

Ties is the story of a marriage. Like many marriages, this one has been subject to strain, to attrition, to the burden of routine. Yet it has survived intact. Or so things appear. The rupture in Vanda and Aldo's marriage lies years in the past, but if one looks closely enough, the fissures and fault lines are evident. Their marriage is a cracked vase that may shatter at the slightest touch. Or perhaps it has already shattered, and nobody is willing to acknowledge the fact.

Domenico Starnone's thirteenth work of fiction is a powerful short novel about relationships, family, love, and the ineluctable consequences of one's actions. Known as a consummate stylist and beloved as a talented storyteller, Domenico Starnone is the winner of Italy's most prestigious literary award The Strega.

Winner of The Bridge Prize for Best Novel 2015

Domenico Starnone
Domenico Starnone is considered by many to be Italy’s greatest living author. He was born in 1943 in Naples and currently lives in Rome. He is the author of fifteen best-selling works of fiction, including: Ties, a New York Times Editors Pick and Notable Book of the Year, and a Sunday Times and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year; Trick, a Finalist for the 2018 National Book Award and the 2019 PEN Translation Prize; and, Trust, “a short, sharp novel that cuts like a scalpel to the core of its characters” (LA Times). All three of these novels were translated by Pulitzer Prize-winner, Jhumpa Lahiri. In 2023, Europa released the Strega Prize-winning The House on Via Gemito in a translation by Oonagh Stransky. It was named a Washington Post and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year and New York Times Editors Choice. In 2024, again in Oonagh Stransky’s translation, Europa released The Mortal and Immortal Life of the Girl from Milan, which the New Yorker described as “wonderfully off-kilter.” Starnone is the recipient many of Italy’s major literary prizes, including: the Strega prize, the Napoli prize, and the Campiello prize.

• Aug 14 2024
  “Intricate and masterful.”
  — Electric Lit
• Mar 18 2018
  Ties by Domenico Starnone
  — The Times
• Nov 27 2017
  Books of the Year
  — The Sunday Times
• Nov 22 2017
  100 Notable Books of 2017
  — The New York Times
• Nov 14 2017
  Best Fiction of 2017
  — Kirkus
• Aug 25 2017
  “Ties is an extraordinary novel."
  — World Literature Today