What is Elsa Morante's Arturo's Island about?

Some novels are set in a place. Arturo's Island is practically made of one. Procida, the small island in the Bay of Naples, is not just the backdrop but the whole horizon of its young narrator's world, and reading it feels like a long, hot, slightly dangerous summer.

The basics

Elsa Morante (1912-1985), born and died in Rome, published L'isola di Arturo with Einaudi in 1957, and it won that year's Strega Prize, according to Treccani and Wikipedia. Isabel Quigly's English translation followed in 1959. It came between her first novel, Menzogna e sortilegio (1948), and her later, much larger La Storia (1974).

What it is about

Arturo grows up in a gloomy old house on Procida. His mother died giving birth to him, and he idolises both her memory and his father, who is away more often than not. Left largely to himself, he roams the island and builds a private mythology in which his father is a heroic figure.

Then his father returns with a new bride, Nunziatella, barely two years older than Arturo. Her arrival unsettles everything: Arturo's feelings, his picture of his father, his sense of who he is. Over the course of the novel the boy's admiration and certainty are slowly tested by what he learns, until leaving the island becomes inevitable.

That is as far as we will go. The pleasure of the book is in how Arturo discovers things, and it is best to discover them with him.

Why people love it

• The island. Procida is evoked with such intensity that many readers want to go there afterwards. The island also holds a prison, which casts a shadow over the sunlit setting.
• The boy. Arturo's fierce certainties and private myths are the engine of the book, and watching them meet reality is both funny and painful.
• The theme. It is one of the great Italian coming-of-age novels, a story about growing up by losing illusions; if you like the form, see what a bildungsroman is.

It is lyrical and emotional rather than plot-driven, so give it unhurried time. It is ideal for a summer by the sea, especially in the south of Italy; we include more ideas in novels set in Italy for summer.

Where to start with Morante

Arturo's Island is the obvious door: focused on one boy and one island, and the novel that won her the Strega. If it wins you over, History (La Storia, 1974) is the big later novel to try next. Menzogna e sortilegio (1948) was her first novel, and Aracoeli (1982) her last.

Read Arturo's Island first, ideally with the sea somewhere in view.

Book and film

Damiano Damiani adapted the novel for the cinema in 1962, and the film won Best Film at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, according to the Wikipedia entry. As usual, read the book first: so much of it happens inside Arturo's head.