Thea Lenarduzzi’s first full-length work, Dandelions, has been published after its proposal won the Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize in 2020, and in many ways, it’s a perfect marriage of writer and publisher. It’s a book that will not look out of place in Fitzcarraldo’s non-fiction catalogue: cerebral, well-written, difficult to categorise, stoically uncommercial, and excellent.
Dandelions is a cross-generational conversation between Lenarduzzi and her grandmother, Nonna, as part of a wider investigation of their family history. Mingled with Nonna’s stories are insights into social and cultural context across four generations, as well as slices of folklore, and an illuminating exploration of the symbolism of dandelions. Lenarduzzi uses her extensive editorial experience to skilfully bring together these disparate elements and cohere them into a connected narrative; the result is a moving, discursive rumination on memory and personal history, and the differences between the two.
It is also a book of ghosts, one that considers the importance of the oral tradition, and the millions of stories that go untold, lost along the way; it asks whether we can keep the dead alive through memory, as well as encouraging us to take the age-old advice of speaking to our elders while we can.
Dandelions, Thea Lenarduzzi (Fitzcarraldo)
Price: £12.99/£5.99 Ebook. Info: here
words JOSHUA REES