Naples
Naples: The Passenger - Europa Editions
The Passenger collects the best new writing, photography, and reportage from around the world. Its aim, to break down barriers and introduce the essence of a place. Packed with essays and investigative journalism; original photography and illustrations; charts, and unusual facts and observations, each volume offers a unique insight into a different culture, and how history has shaped it into what it is today. In recent years, Naples has been the subject of countless books, films and TV series, making it even more difficult to imagine a Neapolitan normality, if it exists at all. As Naples becomes the most filmed city in Italy, where to look for the ordinary, the average?
Street Fight in Naples - Peter Robb
Naples is always a shock, flaunting beauty and squalor like nowhere else. It is the only city in Europe whose ancient past still lives in its irrepressible people. Ranging across nearly three thousand years of Neapolitan life and art, from the first Greek landings in Italy to the author's own, less auspicious, arrival thirty-something years ago, Street Fight in Naples brings vividly to life the tumultuous and, at times, tragic history of Naples.
Gomorrah - Roberto Saviano
Seeking the truth behind organized crime in Naples, Roberto Saviano bravely brings to light the monstrous activities and far-reaching influence of the notorious Camorra – locally known as ‘the System'. Unveiling the Camorra's involvement in high fashion to illegal drugs and even toxic waste disposal, Gomorrah unflinchingly explores the syndicate's iron grip on the Neapolitan coast, stretching beyond traditional depictions of Italian life. The book oscillates between exhilarating investigative journalism and a poignant memoir, painting both a factual and emotional picture of life in the shadow of organized crime.
The House on Via Gemito - Domenico Starnone
The modest apartment on Via Gemito smells of paint and white spirit. The furniture is pushed up against the wall to create a make-shift studio, and drying canvases must be moved off the beds each night. Federì, a railway clerk, is convinced that, if he didn’t have a family to feed, he’d be a world-famous painter. Talented, ambitious, and frustrated, his life is marked by bitter disappointment. His long-suffering wife and their four sons bear the brunt. Years later, his first-born son will tell the story of a man he spent his whole life trying not to resemble. Narrated against the background of a Naples still marked by WWII and first published in Italy over 20 years ago, The House on Via Gemito is a masterpiece of contemporary Italian literature.
My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante
From one of Italy’s most acclaimed authors, comes this ravishing and generous-hearted novel about a friendship that lasts a lifetime. The story of Elena and Lila begins in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighbourhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else, as their friendship, beautifully and meticulously rendered, becomes a not always perfect shelter from hardship. Ferrante has created a memorable portrait of two women, but My Brilliant Friend is also the story of a nation. Through the lives of Elena and Lila, Ferrante gives her readers the story of a city and a country undergoing momentous change.