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‘Writer and translator in powerful harmony’ – Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri wins John Florio Prize for translation Author takes the 2020 John Florio Prize for her ‘exceptional’ and ‘agile’ translation from Italian of Trick by Domenico Starnone, in the...
— The Society of Authors, Feb 12 2021

Domenico Starnone pairs together two opposites in this suspenseful novella, when a disillusioned grandfather reluctantly leaves the comfort of his home to take care of his precocious grandson. The old man, an illustrator, is too preoccupied with a deadline from his editor to...
— Electric Lit, Jun 24 2019
(...) Just how difficult Neapolitan can be, even to someone steeped in Italian, became clear to the author Jhumpa Lahiri when she took on two novels by another of the southern Italian city’s writers, Domenico Starnone. Lahiri moved from the US to Rome and dedicated herself...
— The Guardian, Apr 8 2019
“When I was twelve, other people thought I was a prodigy who dazzled and disturbed… by the time I was twenty, I’d learned to deride the facility of my hands as if it were a weakness.” Daniele Mallarico, who speaks these words, is a renegade Neapolitan, an old man on the...
— Bookanista, Jul 18 2018
omenico Starnone’s fourteenth novel Trick is a case of The Turn of the Screw- driver: the plot hinges on whether one can be found and our narrator, Daniele Mallar- ico, released from an unsettling trap. But it is a different ghostly tale by Henry James – “The Jolly Corner”...
— The Times, Apr 23 2018
An old man’s breakfasts and bath times with a wired-up four-year-old, his wrestling for the remote, desperately trying to find some space for himself and his work. Starnone, one of Italy’s most accomplished novelists, knows the territory and delivers it wonderfully.
— The Guardian, Apr 19 2018
Daniele Mallarico, in his seventies, is on his way from Milan to Naples, where he has agreed to care for his four-year-old grandson Mario for three days so that his daughter and son-in-law can attend a professional mathematics conference. Daniele, already late with illustrations...
— Seeing the world through books, Mar 13 2018
Starnone expertly plucks some of the short story’s essence, twisting and molding his own work into a marvel of metafiction that feels fresh and surprising.
— The Washington Post, Mar 13 2018
Jhumpa Lahiri may have made a name for herself with award-winning fiction like Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake, but lately, the author has been finding new creative fulfillment in an adjacent practice: translation. Over the past few years, Lahiri has immersed...
— Entertainment Weekly, Mar 12 2018
Scherzetto, the book’s Italian title, means “a minor work or composition.” But there is nothing minor about this novel apart from Mario, who is indeed quite small. Trick is not a story for children, nor is it a novel for those in need of reassurance. Here is the fine print...
— Electric Lit, Mar 7 2018
In his playful new novel, translated from the Italian by Jhumpa Lahiri, Strega prize winner Starnone pits Daniele, a cranky 75-year-old artist, against his obstinate four-year-old grandson in a three-day battle of wills. Daniele, still convalescing from surgery, is babysitter...
— BBC Culture, Mar 1 2018
Domenico Starnone’s new novel Trick has all the coherence and intensity of a classic two-hand play. An older man and his grandson of four square off in an apartment in Naples, matching barbs and power plays over the course of a baby-sitting trip set up so the child’s parents...
— Lit Hub, Mar 1 2018
A grandfather has to look after his four-year-old grandson for a few days — with hilarious consequences! So the sell-line for the YouTube version of Domenico Starnone’s Trick (trans Jhumpa Lahiri, Europa, £11.99) might run: small child hurling granddad’s paints and pencils...
— The Sunday Times, Feb 25 2018
Starnone’s astute and emotionally precise novel (after Ties) follows famed illustrator Daniele Mallarico as he returns to his childhood home in Naples at the request of his daughter, Betta. Daniele is reluctantly tasked with watching his four-year-old grandson, Mario, while...
— Publishers Weekly, Feb 6 2018
Starnone’s latest novel describes a man’s visit with his grandson. A new book from Starnone (Ties, 2017, etc.) is an event to celebrate. An exquisite Italian writer believed to be Elena Ferrante’s husband, he writes slim, elegant, meticulously crafted novels—and...
— Kirkus Review, Jan 25 2018
Domenico’s Ties was one of my favourite books of 2017 so it’s safe to say I was eagerly anticipating his next. In Trick, a successful illustrator and his 4 year old grandson are shut inside an apartment in Naples. A sharp observation of two unlikely rivals matching wits and...
— Bookriot, Jan 9 2018
Daniela Petracco Director, Europa Editions The book that made my year: Ties by Domenico Starnone is a powerful short novel about relationships, family, love and the ineluctable consequences of our actions. Lucidly rendered into English by Jhumpa Lahiri, it was selected...
— The Guardian, Dec 29 2017
Domenico Starnone’s Ties (Europa £9.99)is a 144-page novel punching three times that weight. From three viewpoints, it dissects a marriage that has survived more than 50 years, despite infidelities. An outstanding achievement from the writer once suspected of being Elena Ferrante...
— The Sunday Times, Nov 27 2017
Ties by Domenico Starnone among 100 Notable Books of 2017 for the New York Times.
— The New York Times, Nov 23 2017

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