The Anniversary by Andrea Bajani

The Anniversary by Andrea Bajani

'A book that confronts the purity of fact, the tyranny of memory, and the totalitarianism of family like no other' Jhumpa Lahiri

'Intense, sharply imagined and fascinating' Colm Toibin

'On that day, ten years ago, I saw my parents for the last time. Since then I’ve changed phone numbers, houses, continents, I’ve erected an impregnable wall and put an ocean between us. They’ve been the best ten years of my life.'

A son is celebrating a bittersweet anniversary. It is a decade since he saw his parents: the father who ruled through petty acts of intimidation and fear, the mother who silently accepted it, fitting herself in the spaces around others’ lives. As he looks back, he recalls the airless family home, unsettled only by the ringing of a telephone, or a visitor who was soon rejected. And he remembers how he became possessed by the irrepressible desire to be free, to live his own life. But can you ever escape the grip of your origins?

At once unflinchingly honest and razor sharp, The Anniversary is above all a novel of liberation which dismantles the tyranny of the family. It becomes a mirror in which we glimpse something that, even if we have not known it, affects us all.

Written with wisdom and coiled passion, The Anniversary dramatizes the struggles of a wife and a mother for freedom, autonomy and self-realization against the forces of repressionIt is a brilliant portrait of a single soul and her interior life, but also of a society in flux, in the process of change, in the process also of staying the same. Bajani's novel is intense, sharply imagined and fascinating -- Colm Toibin
The Anniversary is about patriarchy and family and the dream of self-determination. It is also about the possibilities of fiction and the novel as a form. Bajani is an extraordinary and uncompromising artist. Every page is written with lucidity, depth, honesty and forensic intelligence -- Katie Kitamura
A book that confronts the purity of fact, the tyranny of memory, and the totalitarianism of family like no other -- Jhumpa Lahiri
With a voice both implacable and refined, Andrea Bajani plants a mine under the picture of a family. And he makes it explode in his truest book yet -- Donatella Di Pietrantonio
A deeply affecting, important book. A sharp analysis and at the same time a tragic farewell to one’s own family -- Jenny Erpenbeck
I have read more than one Bajani novel. Each is completely unexpected, and each is somehow startling and able to take up residence in my life. This is what I long for in a novel. Bajani is a rare, rare find -- Richard Ford
A merciless and beautiful book -- Georgi Gospodinov
Sharp as a showdown, poignant as a farewell -- Antonio Scurati
A scandalously calm book -- Emmanuel Carrère

Andrea Bajani (Author)
Andrea Bajani is the author of several award-winning novels including If You Kept a Record of Sins, Every Promise and The Book of Homes, which have been translated into over twenty languages. The Anniversary was a huge best-seller in Italy and won the Strega Prize in 2025. Born in Rome, he now teaches creative writing at Rice University in Texas.

Geoffrey Brock (Translator)
Geoffrey Brock is the author of three books of poems, the editor of The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Italian Poetry and the award-winning translator of numerous volumes from Italian.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780241766507
ISBN 10	0241766508
Title	The Anniversary
Author	Andrea Bajani
Series	Penguin International Writers
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Books Ltd
Year published	2026-07-02
Number of pages	144
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.