A fable for children and adults: a story of life, death, and terrorism—in the grand tradition of Exupéry’s *The Little Prince

When we first meet 93-year-old millionaire Baron Lamberto, he has been diagnosed with 24 life-threatening ailments—one for each of the 24 banks he owns. But when he takes the advice of an Egyptian mystic and hires servants to chant his name over and over again, he seems to not only get better, but younger.

Except then a terrorist group lays siege to his island villa, his team of bank managers has to be bussed in to help with the ransom negotiations, and a media spectacle breaks out . . .

A hilarious and strangely moving tale that seems ripped from the headlines—although actually written during the time the Red Brigades were terrorizing Italy—Gianni Rodari’s Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto has become one of Italy’s most beloved fables. Never before translated into English, the novel is a reminder, as Rodari writes, that “there are things that only happen in fairytales.”

From the Hardcover edition.

Review

“Gianni Rodari gave free rein to his imagination, with inspired panache and gleeful lightness. At the same time, he had a precise and meticulous love for detail, for rich and exact language, and so all of his inventions are set in a very concrete world that takes form and action.”

—Italo Calvino

From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Gianni Rodari (October 23, 1920–April 14, 1980) was an Italian writer and journalist, most famous for his books for children. The recipient of the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1970, Rodari is a household name in Italy among educators and parents, not to mention children, and is considered by many literary historians to be the country’s most important writer of children’s literature in the twentieth century. Influenced by French surrealism and linguistics, Rodari advocated poetry and language play as a way to recover the rhythm and sound of oral tradition and nursery rhymes. He is the author of The Grammar of Fantasy, a classic manual for teachers, as well as many books for children.

Antony Shugaar is an author and translator. Among his recent translations are Everybody’s Right by Paolo Sorrentino, Bandit Love by Massimo Carlotto, and Sandokan by Nanni Balestrini.