The Solitude of Prime Numbers
The Solitude of Prime Numbers
Regular price
Checking stock...
Regular price
Checking stock...
Summary
A stunning debut novel about the intertwined destinies of two friends brought together by childhood tragedy.
The feel-good place to buy books
- Free US shipping over $15
- Buying preloved emits 41% less CO2 than new
- Millions of affordable books
- Give your books a new home - sell them back to us!

The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano
A prime number is inherently a solitary thing: it can only be divided by itself, or by one; it never truly fits with another. Alice and Mattia also move on their own axes, alone with their personal tragedies. As a child Alice's overbearing father drove her first to a terrible skiing accident, and then to anorexia. When she meets Mattia she recognises a kindred spirit, and Mattia reveals to Alice his terrible secret: that as a boy he abandoned his mentally-disabled twin sister in a park to go to a party, and when he returned, she was nowhere to be found. These two irreversible episodes mark Alice and Mattia's lives for ever, and as they grow into adulthood their destinies seem irrevocably intertwined. But then a chance sighting of a woman who could be Mattia's sister forces a lifetime of secret emotion to the surface. A meditation on loneliness and love, The Solitude of Prime Numbers asks, can we ever truly be whole when we're in love with another?
Moving..masterful...elegantly discreet * Times Literary Supplement *
A very accomplished book...A melancholic, but strangely beautiful, read. Shaun Whiteside's translation is exemplary and the acute descriptions of teenage competitiveness, angst and aspiration bring to mind Alan Warner's writing. * Guardian *
In clear, heartbreakingly precise prose, the youngest ever winner of the prestigious Premio Strega (the Italian Man Booker) explores how trauma and guilt can capsize emotional stability and leave the vulnerable in a wash of unease and loss...a stunning achievement * Daily Mail *
The year's most important début * La Repubblica *
The story is mesmerising * Good Housekeeping *
A very accomplished book...A melancholic, but strangely beautiful, read. Shaun Whiteside's translation is exemplary and the acute descriptions of teenage competitiveness, angst and aspiration bring to mind Alan Warner's writing. * Guardian *
In clear, heartbreakingly precise prose, the youngest ever winner of the prestigious Premio Strega (the Italian Man Booker) explores how trauma and guilt can capsize emotional stability and leave the vulnerable in a wash of unease and loss...a stunning achievement * Daily Mail *
The year's most important début * La Repubblica *
The story is mesmerising * Good Housekeeping *
Paolo Giordano was born in Turin in 1982. He is working on a doctorate in particle physics. The Solitude of Prime Numbers, his first novel, has sold over a million copies in its native Italian, and is being translated into twenty languages. It won Italy's answer to the Man Booker Prize, the Premio Strega Award.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780552775984 |
| ISBN 10 | 0552775983 |
| Title | The Solitude of Prime Numbers |
| Author | Paolo Giordano |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Transworld Publishers Ltd |
| Year published | 2010-03-18 |
| Number of pages | 384 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |