Fitzcarraldo Editions will be publishing Alcide Pierantozzi’s Unbalancing Act, the Italian writer’s genre-defying account of living with autism and severe mental illness. Associate publisher Tamara Sampey-Jawad, acquired world English rights from Einaudi, with North American rights subsequently sold to Patrizia van Daalen at Astra House. A recent finalist for the Strega Prize, the book has been a literary sensation in Italy, and UK and US publications, in Antonella Lettieri’s translation, are scheduled for May 2027.
Alcide is a writer in his forties. He takes seven pills a day – five in the morning, two after dinner – and still sometimes sleeps in his mother’s bed. After years of psychiatric diagnoses, medications, compulsions and hallucinations, he recounts the grey monotony of his days and the terrifying moments when his mental equilibrium begins to tilt. What follows is a reckoning with a mind at war with itself: a dazzling, darkly comic account of obsession, desire, family history and the fragile boundary between reality and delusion. By turns harrowing, tender and startlingly alive, Unbalancing Act moves between medical records, childhood memories, philosophical reflections and scenes of extraordinary imaginative intensity to chronicle a consciousness determined to observe itself even as it comes apart. The result is a singularly literary portrait of psychic suffering and confirmation of Alcide Pierantozzi as one of the most original voices in contemporary Italian writing.
Sampey-Jawad said: ‘Unbalancing Act is a singular book, original in both viewpoint and form. In startlingly imaginative prose, Alcide Pierantozzi breaks down the dichotomy between the real and the imagined, the body and the mind, until reality loses its solidity and we, too, begin to flounder. I’m thrilled to be publishing Antonella Lettieri’s virtuosic translation, and to be working with Alcide, Antonella and Patrizia to bring this remarkable book to English-speaking readers.’
Pierantozzi said: ‘For years, I’ve had a fondness for Fitzcarraldo books and the authors they publish – many of whom are among my favourites. Seeing the cover with my name on it made me feel like I was dreaming.’
Alcide Pierantozzi, born in 1985, made his literary debut at the age of 21 with the novel Uno in diviso [One Un-divided, 2006], followed by L’uomo e il suo amore [The Man and His Love, 2008], Ivan il terribile [Ivan the Terrible, 2012] and L’inconveniente dell’essere amati [The Inconvenience of Being Loved, 2020]. Unbalancing Act is his first work to appear in English.
Antonella Lettieri is a London-based translator working between English and Italian. Her translation of Matteo Melchiorre’s The Duke was longlisted for the International Booker Prize. Her translation of Maria Grazia Calandrone’s Your Little Matter was granted the 2024 PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature and won the 2025 TA First Translation Prize.