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Home > Translation > The World Bookshelf > Books > Time on My Hands

Time on My Hands

Palermo, Sicily, 1978. The Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro has just been kidnapped in Rome by members of the notorious Red Brigades. Two months after his disappearance on 9th May, Moro is found dead in the boot of a car.

A trio of 11-year-old schoolboys, Nimbo, Raggio, and Volo, avidly follow the news of the abduction as their admiration for the brigatisti grows. When the boys themselves resolve to abduct a classmate and incarcarete him in a makeshift ‘people’s prison’, the darkness within their world, and the world of the novel, becomes all-pervasive.

Time on My Hands was shortlisted for the Italian Booker Prize, il Premio Strega, in 2008 and has been translated into many languages. A vivid and hellish description of Sicily in the late ’70s and an extraordinary journey into a world of fierce absolutism, Time on My Hands is an unforgettable novel from one of the most arresting new voices to arrive from Italy in the past decade.

‘A politicised Lord of the Flies… sophisticated, fascinating fiction.’
Independent

Author

Giorgio Vasta

Giorgio Vasta

Books

Time on My Hands

Giorgio Vasta was born in Palermo, Sicily in 1970 and now lives and works in Turin. A former editor at the publishing house Einaudi, his stories have been published in various anthologies. Time on My Hands is his first novel.

Translator

Jonathan Hunt

Jonathan Hunt

Books

Time on My Hands

Jonathan Hunt has translated philosophy, literary criticism, art criticism, history of art, modern history, ancient history,medieval history, history of music, archaeology, history of religions. Jonathan translates mainly from Italian, but also from other European languages, including  German, Russian and Dutch.

Translations include Niccolò Ammaniti, I’m Not Scared (Canongate 2003); Tommaso Pincio, Love-Shaped Story (Flamingo, 2004); Niccolò Ammaniti, I’ll Steal You Away (Canongate, 2006) and The Crossroads (Canongate, 2009); Nicolai Lilin,Siberian Education (Canongate, 2010); Luca Rastello, I Am the Market (Granta, London, 2010 and Faber & Faber, New York, 2011).

Published by

Faber, 2013
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Palermo, Sicily, 1978. The Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro has just been kidnapped in Rome by members of the notorious Red Brigades. Two months after his disappearance on 9th May, Moro is found dead in the boot of a car.

A trio of 11-year-old schoolboys, Nimbo, Raggio, and Volo, avidly follow the news of the abduction as their admiration for the brigatisti grows. When the boys themselves resolve to abduct a classmate and incarcarete him in a makeshift ‘people’s prison’, the darkness within their world, and the world of the novel, becomes all-pervasive.

Time on My Hands was shortlisted for the Italian Booker Prize, il Premio Strega, in 2008 and has been translated into many languages. A vivid and hellish description of Sicily in the late ’70s and an extraordinary journey into a world of fierce absolutism, Time on My Hands is an unforgettable novel from one of the most arresting new voices to arrive from Italy in the past decade.

‘A politicised Lord of the Flies… sophisticated, fascinating fiction.’
Independent

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