Behind the Door

''It was useless to think I''d ever be able to throw open the door behind which I was yet again hiding ... Not now. Not ever.''

School is a place of unspoken hierarchies and rivalries for a young teenage boy growing up in the provincial town of Ferrara. But as the everyday classroom and playground dramas are played out, they begin to reflect the disturbing undertones of 1930s Italy, and the narrator realizes that being Jewish means he will always be excluded. The fourth book in Bassani''s Romanzo di Ferrara cycle, Behind the Door is a luminous portrayal of childhood friendship and the loss of innocence.

A new translation by Jamie McKendrick

''Giorgio Bassani is one of the great witnesses of this century, and one of its great artists'' Guardian

''Powerful new translations . . . Bassani began as a poet, and McKendrick''s redelivery of this taut uncompromising fiction reveals resonance and generosity'' Ali Smith