Elevator lit

Do we have an Italian Camus on our hands? Just possibly - Class of Civilizations won Italy's Flaiano Prize....On Columbus Day weekend, it's added serendipity for the novel to revolve around a character - Signor Amedeo - whose Italian origins are utterly in dispute.

Lakhous shapes his story around a single apartment building on Piazza Vittorio in Rome, an immigrant area. His building's residents, whose stories crisscross, offer a microcosm of modern Rome as they battle over the deteriorating condition of their elevator.

—Carlo Romano, review of Amara Lakhous's Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, Philadelphia Inquirer