Paradiso - Softcover

Masneri, Michele

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1917544065 ISBN 13: 9781917544061

Publisher: Foundry Editions, 2026

Synopsis

On the hottest day of one of the hottest summers anyone has ever known, young journalist Federico Desideri is sent on an apparently routine assignment; to snatch an interview with Italy’s latest Oscar winning film director. But in Rome. Far from the comforts of his native Milan. When the director turns out to be elusive, and the Romans as rough as their reputation, Federico falls in with Barry Volpicelli, the rumoured inspiration behind the winning movie’s lead character - a seductive, fast-talking, America-obsessed rogue, and instead of finding his interviewee, he finds himself in Paradiso—Barry’s crumbling country estate on the Lazio coast, with an eccentric cast of inhabitants who seem frozen in time. Alan Bennett meets Fellini at a shabby, Italian White Lotus in this novel which is a satirical bildungsroman through the nature of illusion, escapism and the enduring myth of the Eternal City. As Federico navigates the absurdities, passions, and dangers of this apparent paradise, it starts to look more and more like purgatory, and he begins to question how he can find his way out.

About this title

About the Authors

Michele Masneri is a freelance writer in Rome. He contributes to the national newspaper Il Foglio, for which he was a special correspondent in Silicon Valley from 2016 to 2018. He’s also a regular contributor to Vogue Italia. His first novel, Addio, Monti, was published in 2014.

Richard Village is a London-based translator and editor working from Spanish and Italian into English. He studied literary translation at the University of East Anglia and is co-founder of Foundry Editions. His translation of Esther García Llovet’s Spanish Beauty was published in 2025.

Edition details

• Publisher: Foundry Editions
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1917544065
• ISBN 13: 9781917544061
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 187