The Earth is Falling

The Earth is Falling is a haunting and magical novel based around the existence of an abandoned village outside Naples. The deserted houses that still stand there are peopled with ghosts who live in a perpetual present from which time has effectively been abolished. The village appears to be semi-alive; the landslide which ominously awaits and which will eventually lead to the abandonment of the place has yet to arrive (yet its rumbles are heard).

Pellegrino peoples Alento with eccentrics, luminaries, an eternally optimistic town crier. In the closing pages, the narrator Estella summons the remaining ghosts for a final dinner. The overall effect is unsettling, haunting and uncanny, the trapped souls doomed to repeat their circumscribed daily life for ever, cut off from the world but dimly aware of its continued presence outside.



Carmen Pellegrino is an Italian historian and writer who studies marginality in urban and rural abandoned areas. An eclectic scholar, she has investigated some of the salient knots of modernity, concentrating her studies on collective movements of dissidence, focusing her research on racism, social exclusion and the conditions of exploitation of migrants (in 'The hours of my day', published in the anthology Qui and Fatigue: stories, tales and reportage from the world of work, 2010, was winner of the award reportage Napoli Monitor). The Earth is Falling was shortlisted for the 2015 Campiello Prize in Italy.