Premio Strega 2019 finalist
Premio Capalbio Letteratura 2019
Premio Asti d’Appello 2019
“Cibrario’s literary adventure has the wider scope of a nineteenth century novel”. La Stampa
“Benedetta Cibrario reawakens an era”. Robinson
“Based on meticulous archival studies and supported by a very personal narrative verve, the work of Benedetta Cibrario shows us an unconventional point of view on the Risorgimento: Anne Bacon, a melancholy and industrious Englishwoman in a small aristocratic Piedmont, is an original character capable of recording and witnessing, day after day, every impulse of an extraordinary historical evolution in the very heart of an archaic world whose secrets are not, however, any less precious.” Giorgio Ficara, presenting Il rumore del mondo for the Premio Strega shortlist
A magnificent novel, a precious tapestry, an exquisite literary voice, a towering achievement.
Summer 1838. A young Englishwoman, Anne Bacon, the daughter of a rich silk merchant, is travelling through France to join her Italian husband, Prospero Vignon, an officer in Turin. On the journey, in the company of her chaperone Theresa Manners and her maid Eliza, Anne falls ill with smallpox. She survives, but is disfigured. Her husband welcomes her with coldness, and the passion between them fades.
To the intrepid Theresa Manners, a devourer of travel guides, Turin is the gateway to the wonders that have enchanted travellers on the Grand Tour. A new life and new adventures are waiting for her and she will soon leave her protegée Anne in the dark and solitary halls of Palazzo Vignon. Ever more distant from her husband, Anne is invited by Casimiro, Prospero’s aging father, to visit the family’s country house. Far from Turin, she discovers the landscape at the foot of the Alps filled with burgeoning industry and meets Enrico, an entrepreneur who is building a modern silk factory. The young man and Anne share a passionate imagination.
This is a time when words such as independence, freedom and the constitution are circulating feverishly. King Charles Albert is devoured by doubts and fears. Casimiro is torn between loyalty to his king and contempt for a weak and vacillating ruler. Meanwhile as industry grows, newspapers spread fresh ideas. Many of the liberals who demand political reforms are aristocrats convinced that an absolute monarchy must end. Times are vibrant with the energy of reform and change, while the noise of new machinery blends with the drums of war. The story of Charles Albert as man and king ends in defeat but the new Italy, unified and independent, is at hand.
The Sound of the World is a powerful novel, a finely documented account of the pivotal and tumultuous period of Italian Risorgimento – in its rebirth of art, history and culture as well as politics – like Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s The Leopard, but from a different viewpoint: here the story is told through the eyes and expectations of three Englishwomen, travelling to Italy, in the twofold sense of a geographical destination and a historical reality. It reveals the reasons for the fascination that Italy exerts on travellers with the same dramatic sweep and richness of detail as E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View and Where Angels Fear to Tread. A beautifully drawn portrait of Italy unlike any other.
Benedetta Cibrario
Benedetta Cibrario was born in Florence. Her university years were spent in Turin, where she received a degree in Modern Literature & History of Cinema with a dissertation on Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Since 1995 Cibrario has lived between Italy and England with her husband and four children. She is the author of Rossovermiglio (2007, Premio Campiello 2008), Sotto cieli noncuranti (2009, Premio Rapallo Carige 2010), Lo Scurnuso (2011), L’uomo che dormiva al parco (2012) and Il rumore del mondo (2018).
“Cibrario’s literary adventure has the wider scope of a nineteenth century novel”. La Stampa
“Benedetta Cibrario reawakens an era”. Robinson
“The destiny of a Nation is reflected in the protagonist’s destiny”. La Lettura
“A novel that accounts the Italy in the making in the 1800s, as much as the contemporary one”. Il Foglio
“Cibrario’s stories are carved by the spirit of time”. Il Sole 24 Ore
“Delicate and intense”. Sul Romanzo
Foreign publishers of Benedetta Cibrario’s books
Germany: Rowohlt
Greece: Oceanida
The Netherlands: Wereldbibliotheek
Portugal: Porto Editora
Romania: Humanitas
Serbia: Plato Books