An international bestseller, this almost painfully lucid picture gives a terrifying account of what happens when nine-year-old Michele makes a terrifying discovery in an old farmhouse on one ordinary hot, hot summer’s day when he is out playing with his friends. Michele knows that he can tell no one what he has seen but here he tells the story, which reveals how from that day on his relationship with everything around him is changed.

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Synopsis

One relentlessly hot summer, six children explore the scorched wheat-fields that enclose their tiny Italian village. When the gang find a dilapidated farmhouse, nine-year-old Michele makes a discovery so momentous he dare not tell a soul. It is a secret that will force him to question everything and everyone around him. An unputdownable thriller, I'm Not Scared is also a devastatingly authentic portrayal of childhood and the tension that arises when it must join the adult world.

Reviews

Sucks you in like The Blair Witch Project - The Observer

Ammaniti's prose is faultless... The brevity of his sentences, the clarity and perfection of each image, gives his novel some of the flavour of a child's picture book - The Independent on Sunday

A deft masterpiece with never a false note - The Guardian

About the Author

Niccolò Ammaniti was born in Rome in 1966. He has written three novels and a collection of short stories. His first novel, Steal You Away, was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. He won the prestigious Italian Viareggio-Repaci Prize for Fiction with his bestselling novel I'm Not Scared, which has been translated into thirty-five languages. The Crossroads received the Premio Strega Prize 2007, Italy's equivalent of the Booker. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation