Short & Satisfying Book Club: "Clash of Civilizations..." by Amara Lakhous

The Short and Satisfying Book Club led by Georgia Court is for those looking for a shorter read that is ripe for discussion. December's selection is Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous (translated by Ann Goldstein), a novella in which a small culturally mixed community living in an apartment building in the center of Rome is thrown into disarray when one of the neighbors is murdered.

We will meet in person at our store location at The Mark, 117 S. Pineapple Ave. The book club is $14.95 which includes a copy of Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio to be picked up at Bookstore1 any time before our meeting.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

An investigation ensues and as each of the victim’s neighbors is questioned, the reader is offered an all-access pass into the most colorful neighborhood in contemporary Rome. Each character takes his or her turn center-stage, “giving evidence,” recounting his or her story—the dramas of emigration, the daily equivocations of immigration, the fears and misunderstandings of a life spent on society’s margins, abused by mainstream culture’s fears and indifference, preconceptions and insensitivity. What emerges is a touching story that is common to us all, whether we live in Rome or in Los Angeles.

This novel is animated by a style that is as colorful as the neighborhood it describes and is characterized by seemingly effortless equipoise that borrows from the cinematic tradition of the Commedia Italiana, as exemplified by directors such as Federico Fellini and Mario Monicelli.

At the heart of this bittersweet comedy told with affection and sensitivity is a social reality that we tend to gloss over and a surprisingly exact anthropological analysis of this reality that cannot fail to fascinate.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Amara Lakhous was born in Algiers in 1970. He has a degree in philosophy from the University of Algiers and another in cultural anthropology from the University la Sapienza, Rome. He recently completed a Ph.D. thesis entitled “Living Islam as a Minority.” His first novel, Le cimici e il pirata (Bedbugs and the Pirate), was published in 1999. Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, winner of Italy’s prestigious Flaiano prize, is his second novel. He currently resides in New York.