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It allows literature to become a refuge for complexity.

— The Glasgow Review of Books, Apr 27 2017

Alessandro Baricco, born in Turin in 1958, is an important figure on the Italian literary scene, not just for his own books – six of which are available in English – but also because of his founding of the Holden School (named after Salinger’s character in Catcher in the...

— Three Monkeys Online, Oct 28 2016

The latest novel from one of Italy’s most prolific and popular contemporary writers appears on its surface to be a fantastical romance. An eighteen-year-old woman arrives at a country house in Italy from Argentina to claim her husband. With her betrothed absent, his extraordinary...

— European Literature Network, Oct 17 2016

Known in the United States for his incandescent novel, Silk, and the same-titled, 2007 movie, Italian writer and director Alessandro Baricco’s latest novel to reach our shores is The Young Bride, translated by the inestimable Ann Goldstein. This novel is a captivating, fable-like...

— Full Stop, Sep 26 2016

In this erotic, mysterious novel, set in Italy, a young woman moves in with the family of her betrothed while he is abroad. She soon learns that this is an extraordinary family: terrified of the night because every ancestor has died after dark, it has made breakfast a ritualistic...

— The New Yorker, Sep 5 2016

Baricco is an Italian author who treads a delicate line between fables (SILK) and the post-modern novel (MR GWYN). His latest combines both these strands with elegance and disconcerting imagination and proves an absolute delight. In an unknown country at an unknown time, or then...

— Lovereading, Sep 1 2016

Mr. Baricco spins it all together into a work of elegance, eroticism and playful make-believe.

— The Wall Street Journal, Aug 22 2016

An 18-year-old girl from Argentina is betrothed to the son of a wealthy Italian family, but when she travels to marry him, she finds he's been sent to England. As she waits for him, she learns the strange ways of his family and becomes intimate with his invalid father, sexually...

— Mail on Sunday, Aug 22 2016

This book THE YOUNG BRIDE is gorgeous and a must read!

— Twitter, Jul 20 2016

Both timeless and artistically contemporary, The Young Bride in its own book-body enacts the movement between desire and despair – and the effort to achieve a balance between them while sensing "a defining infamy" in everything human.

— On the Seawall, Jul 18 2016

The Young Bride (Europa, 176pp; £10.99) is a peculiar tale about a woman who is about to marry into a family where the inhabitants never seem to sleep. As the big day approaches, the atmosphere becomes ever more surreal.

— The Times, Jul 12 2016

A young woman whose hand has been promised to a noble family is whisked away to prepare for marriage at the family villa. In a novel that depicts the young woman's entrance into a fantastically strange family, international best-selling author Alessandro Baricco gives us an erotically...

— i-Italy, May 31 2016