The New York Times called If you Kept a Record of Sins "an astonishing novel.”

For the Publishers Weekly “Bajani brings the full weight of his qualities as a poet, journalist, and professor of European Studies to bear, revealing in finely wrought prose the lasting scars of heartbreak on his characters and the body politic. This is deeply affecting.”

A sly, prismatic novel that Jhumpa Lahiri says “accumulates with the quiet urgency of a snowstorm,” by Andrea Bajani, whom Michael Cunningham calls “a true original.”

If You Kept a Record of Sins records the indelible marks a mother leaves on her son after she abandons their home in Italy for a business she’s building in Romania. Lorenzo, just a young boy when his mother leaves, recalls the incisive fragments of their life – when they would playfully wrestle each other, watch the sunrise, or test out his mother’s mysterious, mythical invention. Now a young man, Lorenzo travels to Romania for his mother’s funeral and reflects on the strangeness of today’s Europe, which masks itself as a beacon of Western civilization while iniquity and exploitation run rampant. With elliptical, piercing prose, Bajani tells a story of abandonment and initiation, of sentimental education and shattered illusions, of unconditional love.

Andrea Bajani is one of the most respected and award-winning novelists of contemporary Italian and European literature. After his debut with Cordiali saluti (Einaudi, 2005), it was Se consideri le colpe (Einaudi, 2007, If you Kept a Record of Sins, Archipelago, 2021) which brought him global attention. In just a few months, the book won the Super Mondello Prize, the Brancati Prize, the Recanati Prize and the Lo Straniero Prize. He is also an author of journalistic essays and regularly contributes to the daily newspapers la Repubblica and Il manifesto.

His works have been translated into many languages, and published by some of the most prestigious American and European publishers, such as Gallimard, Archipelago Books, Siruela, Anagrama, MacLehose, Atheneum, dtv, Humanitas.

This will be a conversation with the author and a presentation of his latest book. Moderator for the event Professor Alessandro Carrera. Books will be available for sale at the event.