I'm Not Scared

From the winner of the Viareggio Prize and the Strega Prize.

One relentless summer, while the adults shelter indoors, six children explore the scorched wheatfields that surround their Southern Italian village. But when the gang chances on a tumbledown farmhouse, nine-year-old Michele Amitrano makes a discovery so momentous he dares not tell anyone about it.

Michele must summon all of his imaginative resources to deal with his terrible secret. An enthralling and terrifying story about friendship and betrayal, guilt and innocence, I'm Not Scared is a powerful and authentic portrayal of a child under devastating pressure, acting on his conscience, against his father and his community.

Niccolo Ammaniti was born in Rome in 1966. At thirty-four, Ammaniti was the youngest ever winner of the prestigious Viareggio-Repaci prize, for the novel I'm Not Scared. An international bestseller, it is currently taught in Australian schools, with a film adaptation released in 2004. It was followed by the novels Steal You Away and The Crossroads.

'Niccolò Ammaniti is the best novelist of his generation.' Il Giornale

'Ammaniti, one of the most admired figures on the Italian fiction scene...uses short sentences like the cracks of a whip and sharp paragraphs to make our hearts race and carry us to the edge of the abyss.' ABC, Spain

'Ammaniti is a born story-teller.' L'Unita

'Readers will find this accomplished work hard to put down and even harder to forget.' Publishers Weekly

'A tense, breathless book, written with self-confidence and vitality.' La Stampa

'Readable in one breath...moving, impressive, amazing. It reminds you of Italo Calvino, but a Calvino warmed by a humanity that is not afraid to roll around in the mud.' Panorama

'Confirms his extraordinary narrative talent, over which he superimposes an atmosphere of horror and marvel.' Le Monde