Literary Fiction

La casa del mago

(The Magician's House)

Ponte alle Grazie, September 2023, pp.250

Shortlisted for the 2024 Campiello prize

45,000 copies sold!

English sample available

A new novel by the winner of the Premio Strega 2021.

A true story that becomes a novel and focuses on the most demanding of family bonds: the one between a father and a son. Like in the best game of mirrors with the author as the protagonist, the search for his father becomes a search for himself and all the lives he left behind.

Emanuele’s father is a Jungian psychologist, a magician capable of healing wounded souls. As a child, Emanuele soon learns that in order to survive in his father’s orbit it’s best for him to be a peripheral figure. After all, his mother keeps saying “You know what he’s like” whenever she talks about his father. But Emanuele doesn’t really know and, after his father dies, very little is left of him except an apartment no one wants, where the invisible mists of the lives and sorrows he had healed, oiled and straightened still linger.

So Emanuele decides to buy this flat and to live permanently in that atmosphere still hovering after his father’s life was cut short, because – first as a son, then as a writer – he wants to reconstruct the identity of a man who never left anything of himself in writing.

Ponte alle Grazie, September 2023, pp.250

  • “It is a homage to the character of his father, a long, filial caress, a contrast to the famous slap in ‘Zeno’s Conscience’.”

    Fino Ruozzi, Il Sole 24 Ore

  • “He is a magician of writing.”

    Filippo La Porta, la Repubblica

  • “Emanuele Trevi, the ‘magician’s’ son, is also a magician. And this book is his spell.”

    Antonio Scurati, Strega Prize Winner

  • “bewitching, beautiful (…) Once again, Emanuele Trevi writes an essay in the form of a novel in the first person, and once again it’s striking how his light, conversational and almost humorous tone – worthy of Italo Svevo – manages ‘with apparent levity’ to penetrate in his life and all of ours, everything that is murky and unmanageable.”

    Andrea Cortellessa, Corriere della Sera

  • “An amazing, dream-like novel, mysterious and cryptic.”

    Alberto Pezzini, Libero

  • “As true writer, Trevi uses style, plot and structure, proving once again that what is important in literature is form.” 

    Gianluigi Simonetti, Alias

  • “A mesmerizing, wandering and clever book: wonderful.”

    Andrea Bajani, Il Venerdì

  • “A journey into the depths within and of the world.”

    Elena Stancarelli, D - La Repubblica

  • “Trevi gifts us with precious pages.”

    ttL

  • “In the style Trevi has chosen (…) a touch of Chaplinesque lightness.” 

    Alessandro Zaccuri, Avvenire

Rights Sold

France:Philippe Rey; Spain: Sexto Piso; Turkish: Ayrinti/Dusbaz.

Option Publishers: Brazil: Ayiné;  Germany: Oktaven.

Emanuele Trevi

Emanuele Trevi (Rome, 1964) is the son of Jungian psychoanalyst Mario Trevi and it is to him that the author dedicates his new book, published by Ponte alle Grazie. He is a novelist, literary critic and essayist. He has presented various radio programs and is the author of stage plays. Alongside Arnaldo Colasanti, he has been creative director of the publishing house Fazi and edited the works of Emilio Salgari, John Fante, Goffredo Parise, Giosetta Fioroni, Giorgio Manganelli, Edmondo De Amicis and many others. His fiction debut came in 2003 with I cani del nulla (Einaudi stile libero), but it was with his memoir-novel Qualcosa di scritto (Something Written Down, Ponte alle Grazie, 2012) that he focused on a specific literary form: fiction essay, positioned between biography, fiction and personal memoir. Qualcosa di scritto recreates the days of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s death and was shortlisted for the Strega prize, going on to win the European Literature Prize, a great success with over 40,000 copies sold, translated into 15 languages. Then came Il popolo di legno (Einaudi stile libero, 2015) and Sogni e favole (Ponte alle Grazie, 2019), (winner of the Premio Letterario Viareggio-Repaci). However, it was with Due vite (Neri Pozza, 2020), a fiction-biography and homage to the memory of two writers and friends, Pia Pera and Rocco Carbone, that Trevi won the Strega in 2021. His other books include Viaggi iniziatici. Percorsi, pellegrinaggi, riti e libri (Utet, 2021) and L’onda del porto. Un sogno fatto in Asia (Neri Pozza, 2022). He has been writing for many years for Il Corriere della sera and La Lettura.

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