The Crossroads

Niccolò Ammaniti

Apr 2011 · Bolinda · Narrated by Nicholas Bell

About this audiobook

Thousands of depressed little towns, villages and hamlets dot the vast plain where Cristiano Zena lives with his hard-drinking father Rino. Unfocused urban sprawl with no centre to look to and nothing to look forward to. Rino Zena and his cronies Danilo and Quattro Formaggi are planning a ram raid on an ATM using a converted tractor. The wary, adoring Cristiano sits in on their meetings, watching their half-baked plans unravel, and thinks about the unattainable Fabiana Ponticelli. He has no idea that something very, very bad is about to happen. Or that it will change his life forever...

About the author

Niccolò Ammaniti is one of Italy's brightest literary stars. His fiction combines tense horror with the blackest comedy and displays a knowing intelligence. Ammaniti's allusions to 1970s film and B-movie schlock place him at the vanguard of Italy's so-called giovani cannibali - young cannibals - who draw variously on kung-fu videos, comics and pop music (Bryan "Ferrari" Ferry) to conjure a disaffected modern Italy.

Nicholas Bell is an English actor who has worked in Australia for more than 20 years. He attended the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London and has performed in many theatre productions in London and Australia including Romeo & Juliet. Nicholas' television appearances include Inspector Morse, Frontline, Stingers, Blue Heelers and The Games which won the TV Week Logie for Most Outstanding Comedy Program in 2001. Films Nicholas has appeared in include Mission Impossible, The Craic and Shine.

Jonathan Hunt was born in Portsmouth in 1951. He has taught at the universities of Munich, Cambridge and Turin, and has worked as a literary translator for several years. He currently holds a research post at Turin University and divides his time between Italy and Britain.