The wonderful author of "Mentre dorme il pescecane" (While the Shark is Asleep), now tells us the story of a woman, the narrator’s grandmother, her life, her marriage and her love affairs: in this order, since in her life everything happens a bit too late, when her hopes have faded. Marriage seems a vanished possibility when, in 1943, a man comes to Cagliari and, after being hosted by her family he returns the favour by marrying their daughter. But this isn’t love as yet, that kind of love all Milena Agus’ characters yearn for and dream of with so much unfortunate ardour. However, it seems to arrive quite unexpectedly, at some thermal baths she is sent to for her kidnay stones, her stone ache. This turns up being her heartache, dragging the heroine in a story of absolute, unforeseen happiness with the ‘veteran’, a crippled married man suffering from the same illness.
Born in Genoa to Sardinian parents, Milena Agus (1959) lives and works in Cagliari. The reviewers call her “the Sardinian fairy”. The “House in Via Manno” (published in Italy as “Mal di pietre”, 2006), her second novel, won three Italian literary awards, and has been a bestseller in Italy, France, and Germany. In December 2008, Milena Agus was awarded the prestigous Zerilli-Marimò prize in New York. A film adaptation of the novel is in production.
* The website www.colibri.bg is optimized 
