Page 86 - NEW TITLES JANUARY - MARCH 2024

ADVANCE INFORMATION

Nadja: The

Librarian’s Hope

Gregory Andrusz

KEY SELLING POINTS

Fictional story inspired by Greek mythology and Jean Cocteau’s interpretation of a particular tragedy.
The story captures aspects of Italian culture, the country’s mores, lifestyles, and politics.
With nods to Giovanni Guareschi’s, The World of Don Camillo’ and Fellini’s film ‘Amacord’.

Montelorenzo, southern Tuscany. Alessandro, the owner of a successful campsite, is from a local, formerly
wealthy, landowning family, one of whose family members held a senior post in the Fascist regime. He
believes that Montelorenzo deserves to have its own library, and, for political reasons, nominates Franco to
become its first librarian.

Franco comes from a long established, artisan family. Although university educated, he decides to follow in his
father’s footsteps as a cabinet maker. He is a popular and eligible, Moto Guzzi driving bachelor, whose family
has a long history of left-wing activism.

While on a lunchtime break in a bar not far from his workshop, Franco meets Nadja; a spirited and determined
but anxious person. Her mother died giving birth to her and she was brought up by her father, a communist,
who named his daughter Nadja after the wives of both Lenin and Stalin. Nadja, short for Nadezhda, means
‘Hope’ in Russian. Nadja figuratively – and literally – becomes Franco’s hope.
As befits a Greek tragedy, the story raises questions of fate and freedom in human life.

Gregory Andrusz retired from academic life as a sociologist and specialist on the former Soviet Union. He is
now focused on storytelling, which is also a means for exploring his ideas. Gregory’s fiction is inspired by his
life and the lives of people he has known and his understanding of the relationship between history, social
structures, and human behaviour in different European countries. He resides in London.

Publication Date: Was January now February 2024 £9.99 ISBN: 9781805142164
Thema subject category: FBA – Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary
paperback 198 x 129 mm 160 pp Portrait Author location: London

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