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A novel by Emanuele Pettener, assistant professor of Italian and writer in residence at FAU, was published by the independent Italian publisher Arkadia editore (Cagliari) in April 2022. “Giovani ci siamo amati senza saperlo” is a comedy (with a twist ending) about the intoxicating joie de vivre of youth. The four protagonists are 20-year-olds and the novel is set in one of the most languid, erotic and romantic cities in the world, Venice. This city of Veronica Franco and Casanova is also the city where Pettener was born. ��

The title of the novel, translated to English as “Young We Loved Each Other Without Knowing That,” was inspired by the last line of William Butler Yeats’s poem “After Long Silence”:

Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of art and song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant.

Pettener teaches Italian language and literature in the department of Languages, Linguistics, and Comparative Literature, where he received his Ph.D. in Comparative Studies in 2004. He is the author of five other novels: “È sabato mi hai lasciato e sono bellissimo” (Corbo, 2009), “Proust per bagnanti” (Meligrana, 2013), “Arancio” (Meligrana, 2014), “Floridiana” (Arkadia, 2021), and “Giovani ci siamo amati senza saperlo” (Arkadia, 2022). He also wrote the essay “Nel nome del padre del figlio e dell’umorismo. I romanzi di John Fante” (Cesati, 2010) and a collection of short stories titled A Season in Florida (Bordighera Press, 2014).��

More information on the book can be found here:

(Printable Version)

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