I'm Staying Here

“Quietly devastating…Balzano’s unvarnished approach heightens the poignancy of a story based on real events.” —Publishers Weekly

“Haunting and powerful.” —Booklist

“Brilliantly drawn…a quiet but heart-rending novel.” —Irish Examiner

“[An] intimate historical novel…[the] translation is delicate and assured and seems to retain the lyricism and immediacy of the Italian original…the themes that emerge from Balzano’s narrative, even as the town is being submerged under waves of fascism, are timeless.” —Irish Times
 
“Balzano employs an unpretentious style to explore Trina’s life and wider questions about an individual’s relationship to a particular place.” —Sunday Times, The Best New Historical Fiction

“A heartbreaking historical novel about the effects of extraordinary events on ordinary people.” —Foreword Reviews

“In relatively few pages that somehow span decades, a mother’s intimate writings to her missing daughter capture a village on the border between German Nazis and Italian fascists, a community caught between ordinary desire and authoritarian abuse, hearts caught between hate and hope. This spare, exquisite novel is a stunning testament to the power of words, even when they fail.” —Meg Waite Clayton, author of the international bestseller The Last Train to London

“A novel that builds with every chapter, as happens with talented storytellers. Although set in another era, [I’m Staying Here] speaks to our current tumultuous times: borders, migration, ethnic conflicts, abuse of power over ordinary people, authoritarian impulses.” —L’Espresso
 
“With its theme of resistance and its succinct style, without an unnecessary adjective, [I’m Staying Here] recalls the best examples of Italian neorealism.” —TuttoLibri