A Sister’s Story: A Novel

A BEST BOOK OF 2022 (New Yorker)

FINALIST FOR THE 2021 STREGA PRIZE

From the internationally acclaimed author of A Girl Returned, a spellbinding story about family, memory, love, & the relationships that define us.

It’s the darkest time of night. Adriana, a baby in her arms, hammers on her sister's door. Who is she running from? What uncomfortable truth will she deliver? Like a whirlwind, Adriana breaks into her sister’s life bringing chaos & cataclysmic revelations. 

Years later, the narrator gets an unexpected, urgent summons back to Pescara. She embarks on a long journey through the night, & through the folds & twists of her memory, from her and her sister’s youth, their loves & losses, their secrets & regrets. Back in Borgo Sud, the town’s fishermen’s quarter, in that impenetrable yet welcoming microcosm, she will discover what really happened, & perhaps make peace with the past.

Donatella Di Pietrantonio, expert chronicler of the bonds between mothers & daughters, revisits the places & characters of A Girl Returned with a moving novel focused on the ambivalent, ambiguous, wavering but steadfast relationship between sisters.

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Donatella Di Pietrantonio lives in Penne, Abruzzo. Her short fiction has been published by Granta Italy, & her novel, Bella mia, was nominated for the Strega Prize & won the Brancati Prize. A Girl Returned, her third novel, won the Campiello Prize. A Sister’s Story was a finalist for the 2021 Strega Prize.