I'm not scared

I'm Not Scared accompanied me to Berlin in my post-birthday travel treat. It seemed somewhat ironic to be reading an Italian author but there you go. Niccolo Ammaniti has written a wondrous story full of suspence, set in a southern Italian hamlet in 1978, from the perspective of a nine year old boy. Exploring a remote delapilated farmhouse Michele Amitrano discovers something that confuses and frightens him and ultimately shatters the innocence of childhood. Where Ammaniti excels is in both keeping a taut grip on narrative tension and in reflecting reality as seen by a child, where the adult world is as a foreign country and the child a traveller ignorant and innocent of its customs and meanings. The story grabs you in a very real way so that even at the end one wonders how much was true and how much fiction. IL PIACERE ROTONDO!