Description
Book SynopsisA mythic work of sweeping literary imagination, The Legend of Baraffo speaks to our current social climate and the ingredients for progress.
In Baraffo, a town gripped by revolutionary fervour, a young boy is grappling with the motivations of an arsonist now imprisoned. Why, Mazzu asks, did Babello burn an empty building? Is the mayor, the chief aide, Giulietta—who the boy adores—the prisoner's supporters, or Babello himself to be believed?
When Mazzu decides for himself, and helps Babello to escape in a mesmerizing spectacle, it ignites in the townspeople a desire for more upheaval, and they push for revolution. Years later, now mayor himself, Mazzu toils to quell the roiling instability that Babello unleashed, failing to do so through politics, but succeeding through art and the enchantment of exalted love.
Within an extraordinary world, this coming-of-age story—of a boy and a town—asks prescient questions about the nature of social change: is it better accelerated by those who seek total transformation, or attained by those trying to work within the system?
Trade ReviewThe Legend of Baraffo is a lucid dream of a novel, a fable fierce in its moral clarity and gorgeous at the line level." —Omar El Akkad, Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning author of
What Strange Paradise "Seamlessly pivoting from fairy tale to one of caution, Surani's novel is a sly exploration of power and all that's crushed to maintain it." —Monique Truong, author of
The Sweetest Fruits
