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In this irresistible debut novel that became a phenomenon in Italy, a freethinking young wife and mother brings a gust of modernity to a traditional small town in Southern Italy, stirring forbidden passions and changing the life of everyone around her.
Salento, Italy, June 1934:
A coach stops in the main square of Lizzanello, a village with only a few souls. A couple get off: the man, Carlo, a child of the South, is happy to be back home; the woman, Anna – his wife – is a stranger from the North. She is as beautiful as a Greek statue, but sad and worried. Salento is her husband’s hometown, and while it’s only logical to him that they move back to raise their newborn son in this slow, tight-knit community, Anna is dubious. What kind of life awaits her?
In a small, beachside, muggy town like Lizzanello, there aren’t many options for a woman with Anna’s sensibilities and ambitions, so when she learns that the post office is hiring, she leaps at the opportunity. Taking the postal service exam, and passing with flying colors, Anna proudly dons the navy blue cap and begin delivering letters.
In the eyes of the villagers, Anna never ceases to be "the foreigner" who doesn't attend church, doesn't wander around the village and doesn't gossip. While she might not trade rumors, that doesn’t stop her from being the subject of conversation. Her sister-in-law is shocked when she realizes that Anna doesn’t serve the men of the house as she’s supposed to do, her young niece admires her strange new aunt, and her brother-in-law finds himself seduced by her beauty and intelligence.
But over the next twenty years, Anna will become the invisible thread connecting a community she never expected to fit into, ferrying letters between secret lovers, men at war, and families near and far. A woman who was once deemed the ultimate foreigner becomes crucial to the connections between the community for decades to come.