“I was a child of separations, false or unspoken kinships, distances,” says Arminuta (the “girl returned”) in Donatella Di Pietrantonio’s novel, her first published in English. Returned by the mother who raised her to the mother she didn’t know conceived her, Arminuta inhabits a world where sounds, smells and objects are more present than the adults behind them. Set against the rugged landscape of Abruzzo, Italy, A Girl Returned explores the arbitrariness of origin and family relationships, and questions whether we really belong anywhere.
