The Letter Carrier : A Novel （2025. 416 S. 9.2100 in）

Giannone, Francesca/ UEbersetzung:Pauletto, Elettra

PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE; CROWN（2025発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版
• 商品コード 9798217088171

Description

(Text)
NATIONAL BESTSELLER [A] five-star read . . . If you love a family saga, sprinkled with historical fiction elements, and strong female protagonists, you need to read this book. theSkimm

Discover a little town in southern Italy that might be just like every town with women and men, husband and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, all trying to navigate the world while staying true to their hearts.

What would happen if you finally met your soul mate but they were married to someone else?

Salento, Italy, June 1934: A coach stops in the main square of Lizzanello, a tight-knit village where everyone knows each other. A couple gets off: The man, Carlo, a child of the South, is happy to be back home after a long time away; the woman, Anna his wife is a stranger from the North. Carlo s brother is there to meet them, and he and everyone else can t help but notice that Anna is as beautiful as a Greek statue.

But Anna is not like the other wives. She doesn t gossip or attend church. She reads books no one else has ever heard of, exploring ideas that some find threatening. She even wears pants, just like a man, and thinks a woman should have rights, just like a man.

There aren t many options for a woman with Anna s sensibilities, so when she learns that the post office is hiring, she leaps at the opportunity. A female letter carrier? It is unthinkable! But Anna passes the postal exam and soon becomes the invisible thread connecting the town as she delivers letters between clandestine lovers, families waiting to hear news of loves ones away at war, and even helping those who can t read.

Letters connect people, and they convey information and emotion. But for some in Lizzanello, letters are too little and too late.

The Letter Carrier taps into the universal feeling of connection and what happens when that connection perhaps comes at the wrong time.
(Review)
Francesca Giannone brings the sun-soaked vineyards of southern Italy to life in this transportive and poignant novel. The Letter Carrier, set in the difficult decades before and after WWII, is a lush diorama of a village in flux. At the beating heart of it all is Anna, the rule-breaking, bighearted letter carrier, a woman ahead of her time and drawn movingly from the author s own great-grandmother s story. An arresting read by an important rising author. Juliet Grames, internationally bestselling author of The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna and The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia

[S]weeping yet intimate debut novel . . . Giannone s bittersweet narrative is a testament to the power of connections made and missed, and a sensitive portrait of a woman bravely writing her own story. Shelf Awareness

[W]hen I gobbled up this WWII-era historical fiction over the weekend, it quickly became one of my few five-star reads of the year. . . . Everything about this slice-of-life story was heartwarming and impactful. If you love a family saga, sprinkled with historical fiction elements, and strong female protagonists, you need to read this book . . . I won t stop talking about it until you pick it up for yourself. The Skimm

[T]he story is full of characters you ll feel you know well, plus their fiery affairs, destructive secrets, and love no less deep when it remains unacknowledged . . . The storytelling carries you easily, and the vineyard country of southern Italy makes for a lovely backdrop. Historical Novel Society

Inspired by Giannone s great-grandmother, this character-driven story uses multiple perspectives to explore gender roles, missed opportunities, and the importance of family connection. Booklist

Francesca Giannone is a magnificent storyteller, a master of chiaroscuro, the light and dark, delivering the delicious joys of life along with all that falls into shadow. This novel is rich and personal. Adriana Trigiani, author of The View from Lake Como


International Praise for The Letter Carrier

A great historical and coming-of-age novel, interwoven with maturity and wisdom, that speaks to each of us in a way that allows a fragment of life to contain and give back an entire universe. Corriere della Sera

The Letter Carrier conceals a strong soul, that of marginal, saved stories. Nadia Terranova, author of Farewell, Ghosts and Zia Nina

With an intense and engaging style, [Francesca Giannone] describes the psychology of the characters . . . and the novel becomes a small historical fresco. La Lettura