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QUÉ SIGNIFICA SER UN HOMBRE?

LA GRAN NOVELA GANADORA DEL PREMIO STREGA

«Una obra de ficción maximalista comparable con Knausgård, Bolaño
o Ferrante.».- Jonathan Galassi, editor de FSG (EE UU)

¡Qué sencillo y bonito habría sido no tener sexualidad!

Un grupo de antiguos alumnos de una prestigiosa escuela privada cometen un crimen brutal. En la misma época, Edoardo Albinati también estudiaba en esa escuela de sacerdotes católicos. Durante cuarenta años ha guardado el secreto de aquella mala educación, y ahora lo afronta sin tapujos. El resultado es una novela extraordinaria, que trata del sexo, la religión y la violencia, del dinero, la amistad y la venganza, ganadora del prestigioso Premio Strega. Una lectura estremecedora de la que no se sale indemne.

«Una obra de ficción maximalista comparable con la de Knausgård, Bolaño o Ferrante.»- Jonathan Galassi, editor de Farrar, Straus and Giroux

«1.296 páginas son demasiadas? Para una novela, casi siempre lo son. Pero si se trata de una tentativa de comprender el mundo, como en el caso del libro de Albinati, entonces no. Entonces son pocas. Demasiado pocas. [...] No es solo un libro importante, sino grandioso. Una narración absolutamente original que se convertirá en una referencia de la creación literaria de nuestro tiempo.».- Francesco Piccolo, Il Corriere della Sera

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

A semiautobiographical coming-of-age story, framed by the harrowing 1975 Circeo massacre

Edoardo Albinati's The Catholic School, the winner of Italy's most prestigious award, The Strega Prize, is a powerful investigation of the heart and soul of contemporary Italy.

Three well-off young men―former students at Rome's prestigious all-boys Catholic high school San Leone Magno―brutally tortured, raped, and murdered two young women in 1975. The event, which came to be known as the Circeo massacre, shocked and captivated the country, exposing the violence and dark underbelly of the upper middle class at a moment when the traditional structures of family and religion were seen as under threat.

It is this environment, the halls of San Leone Magno in the late 1960s and the 1970s, that Edoardo Albinati takes as his subject. His experience at the school, reflections on his adolescence, and thoughts on the forces that produced contemporary Italy are painstakingly and thoughtfully rendered, producing a remarkable blend of memoir, coming-of-age novel, and true-crime story. Along with indelible portraits of his teachers and fellow classmates―the charming Arbus, the literature teacher Cosmos, and his only Fascist friend, Max―Albinati also gives us his nuanced reflections on the legacy of abuse, the Italian bourgeoisie, and the relationship between sex, violence, and masculinity.