La ragazza delle meraviglie

A touching coming-of-age novel. A Naples rich in myths and legends waiting to be discovered.

In Naples, on a cold winter’s night, a newborn baby girl is abandoned in the baby hatch at the hospital of Annunziata. Around her neck, a copper necklace with two objects: a rusty key and a very old coin. Adopted by a kind, originally working-class family, Fanny grows up in the countryside that dominates the city. She spends her childhood in solitary adventures, exploring old ruins and seeing shadows in her dreams; for this she is nicknamed janara, witch. She is almost fourteen when she discovers by chance the truth about her past. Angry, she runs away from home and finds shelter in a cave by the sea, Fanny is alone and has with her only the two objects with which she was abandoned. And even though it feels it is an impossible undertaking, she decides to go searching for her real parents. Across a secret Naples where mysterious gods are worshipped, the dead mingle with the living and old legends seem to come alive, Fanny unearths a story of love and death that leads her to discover her origins and perhaps the origins of an entire city.