Italian Life

How does Italy really work? When Valeria travels from hot, dusty Basilicata to begin her studies in a northern university town, she has little idea of the kind of education she will find there.

Italian Life is her story, and that of the students and professors around a story of power and corruption, influence and exclusion, and the workings of a society where your connections are everything.

Written with flair and insight, Italian Life joins Tim Parks' books about his beloved and paradoxical adopted country. It is a gripping, entertaining, behind-the-scenes account of how Italy actually happens, and the ways it can surprise those who know it inside out.