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3.0 

A Devil Comes to Town

By Paolo Maurensig & Anne Milano Appel
A Devil Comes to Town by Paolo Maurensig & Anne Milano Appel digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

PAOLO MAURENSIG was born in Gorizo, and lives in Udine, Italy. Now a bestselling author, he debuted in 1993 with The Lüneburg Variation, translated into twenty-five languages, and selling over 2 million copies in Italy. His novels include Canone Inverso, The Guardian of Dreams, and The Archangel of Chess. For his novel Theory of Shadows, published by FSG in the US in January 2018, he won the Bagutta Prize. A Devil Comes to Town is his latest novel.

ANNE MILANO APPEL, based in California, has translated works by a number of leading Italian authors for a variety of publishers in the US and UK. Her most recent translations include works by the award-winning Antonio Scurati and Paolo Maurensig. Her awards include the Italian Prose in Translation Award, the John Florio Prize for Italian Translation, and the Northern California Book Award for Translation. Her website is: amilanoappel.com.

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99 Reviews

3.0
“This little novella was…interesting. I say “interesting” with an ellipsis because in the span of 113 pages the author managed to tell a story within a story while making the innermost story a very allegorical and satirical fable on the literary world. What i mean is: an unnamed narrator (the author himself? Paolo Maurensig??) receives an anonymous manuscript of a tale told to the author by a cleric about the time the devil, disguised as a book publisher, arrived in the town the cleric worked in and wreaked havoc among every single citizen. I thought the translation of this book was great. The tone was very witty and slightly funny, with a touch of delusion on the part of the cleric telling the original story. Very gothic-feeling and suspenseful, though a little wacky (in a good way). I would recommend if you’re in the mood for a very quick read that leaves you feeling simultaneously satisfied and also slightly confused.”
“A story within a story within a story. A possibly unreliable narrator. A devil in human form. Sign me up.”
“{The Devil Comes to Wittenberg: A Tragicomedy by George Hitchcock}”

About Paolo Maurensig

PAOLO MAURENSIG was born in Gorizo, and lives in Udine, Italy. Now a bestselling author, he debuted in 1993 with The Lüneburg Variation, translated into twenty-five languages, and selling over 2 million copies in Italy. His novels include Canone Inverso, The Guardian of Dreams, The Archangel of Chess, and Theory of Shadows, which won the Bagutta Prize in 2016. A Devil Comes to Town is his latest novel, and has received rave reviews from the Italian press.

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