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A review by lepasseportlitteraire
Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous
emotional
funny
informative
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
๐ I read this *amazing* book for my first ever book club, the #translatedgemsbookclub by @translatedgems
๐ The writing of Amara Lakhous is witty, and WILL make you laugh out loud, literally!
๐ The story takes place in a building in Rome, where various tenants give their opinion about the suspect of a murder case that took place in the elevator of the building, and while doing so they will also give their unfiltered opinions about immigrants in Italy, Italian decadent economics, mafia, Italian society and most of all how they were surprised to learn that Amedeo (the suspect) is actually an immigrant himself: it is impossible, because you see he speaks such good Italian (๐)
๐ As an Italian myself I cannot stress enough how the author of this book is spot on on what I personally see as the main disease of this country: the Italian habit of always blaming โthe otherโ, whether it is the immigrants, or some immigrants rather than other, the Italians from the South, the Italians from the North...
๐ It also perfectly captures how deeply Italian society is divided and how intolerance and racism runs in this country, division between Italians depending on which region you are from, but also division between good and bad immigrants, depending on how well they โintegratedโ
๐ The writing of Amara Lakhous is witty, and WILL make you laugh out loud, literally!
๐ The story takes place in a building in Rome, where various tenants give their opinion about the suspect of a murder case that took place in the elevator of the building, and while doing so they will also give their unfiltered opinions about immigrants in Italy, Italian decadent economics, mafia, Italian society and most of all how they were surprised to learn that Amedeo (the suspect) is actually an immigrant himself: it is impossible, because you see he speaks such good Italian (๐)
๐ As an Italian myself I cannot stress enough how the author of this book is spot on on what I personally see as the main disease of this country: the Italian habit of always blaming โthe otherโ, whether it is the immigrants, or some immigrants rather than other, the Italians from the South, the Italians from the North...
๐ It also perfectly captures how deeply Italian society is divided and how intolerance and racism runs in this country, division between Italians depending on which region you are from, but also division between good and bad immigrants, depending on how well they โintegratedโ
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism