Una mujer, ya anciana, muestra los primeros síntomas de una enfermedad que le arrebata la memoria e incluso a sí misma. Su mente se está convirtiendo poco a poco en una larga noche sin luna y solo su hija puede ayudarla a mitigar esa oscuridad, reconstruyendo su historia, pero también la de ambas, marcada por un amor «que se torció enseguida». Desentrañar día tras día los pequeños y grandes acontecimientos hace aflorar recuerdos dulces y al mismo tiempo duros, llenos de intensidad y de verdad.

My Mother Is A River is the debut novel by the author, brought to an English readership by translator Franca Scurti Simpson. It is the first book from Calisi Press and suggests the wealth of female Italian writers which the press was set up to recognise.

It concerns a lady losing her memory, and is told by the daughter as she tells her mother Esperina's story to her. And how wonderfully it is told! The book is lush in dsecriptions of the countryside, food and characters of Abruzzo, this alongside the hardships of rural life from women living through the second half of the twentisth century, cruelties from the land itself and sometimes the men and societies around them. The writing and translation are poetic and some passges would stamd alone as poetry, for example the page long metaphor of Esperina comparing her to a river, from which the title is taken.

Esperia's alzheimers mirrors the collective amnesia about the relatively recent rural life which has been overtaken by televison, roads, cars and migration to the city, but this books beautifully evokes it and could have you longing to travel to the region and salivating over the food.

Ferrante fever has been great for translated fiction, but this book demonstrates the strength in depth of Italian women's writing, and I look forward to future books from Calisi Press. ( )