Watching Over Her - by Jean-Baptiste Andrea (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

From French literary talent and Prix Goncourt winner Jean-Baptiste Andrea, a "sprawling fresco and star-crossed love story" (The New York Times) following a dwarf and skilled sculptor as he recounts the moments in his life that inspired his mysteriously powerful masterpiece--perfect for readers of Martyr! and The Covenant of Water.

In an Italian monastery, a sculptor named Mimo lays on his deathbed. For decades, he has lived among the monks who watch over his masterpiece, an arresting statue that haunts all who see it.

During his final hours, he reveals his life story: his impoverished childhood, brutal apprenticeship, and, most important, his meeting with Viola Orsini, the only daughter of a powerful and dangerous aristocratic family. Mimo and Viola are instantly drawn to one another, viewing themselves as outsiders--Mimo, for his dwarfism, Viola for her ability to remember everything she has ever read or experienced. Together, they traverse the unrest of the twentieth century, from the rise of fascism to the violence of the world wars. While Mimo becomes a celebrated artist, Viola chases her own dreams of becoming an emancipated woman. Over the decades, they will lose and find each other time and again, but never will they give up on the love they share.

Immersive and full of heart, Mimo's adventures are ribald and hilarious, challenging conventions of his day. Jean-Baptiste Andrea's Prix Goncourt-winning novel has captivated audiences around the globe and is available to readers in English for the first time thanks to Frank Wynne's wonderfully vivid translation.

Review Quotes

"Andrea blends the tumultuous history of 20th-century Italy with finely wrought character work. It's a marvel."
--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, Starred Review

"A sprawling fresco and star-crossed love story that follows Michelangelo 'Mimo' Vitaliani, a dwarf and skilled sculptor who at the end of his life is said to be 'watching over' his masterpiece, a mysteriously powerful sculpture."
--THE NEW YORK TIMES

"This is most significantly a song of love to a country of contradictions, battered, war-torn, divided, misguided and miraculous: an Italy where life is costume and the performance of art, and where circuses spring up on wasteland. The Italy that produced both Mussolini and Fellini, fascists and futurists and communists; where 'beauty is always imperilled' and 'genius grows like a weed.'"
--THE GUARDIAN

About the Author

Jean-Baptiste Andrea is a writer, screenwriter, and director. His novel Watching Over Her was awarded the Prix Goncourt, the most prestigious French literary award. He is also the author of Ma Reine, A Hundred Million Years and a Day, and Devils and Saints.

Frank Wynne is an Irish literary translator, writer, and editor. He has translated numerous French and Hispanic authors including Michel Houellebecq, Patrick Modiano, Javier Cercas, and Virginie Despentes. Over a career spanning more than twenty-five years, his work has twice earned him the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and been awarded the Scott Moncrieff Prize three times and the Premio Valle Inclán twice. Most recently, his translation of The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers' Guild by Mathias Énard won the 2024 French-American Prize. He has edited two major anthologies, Found in Translation: 100 of the Finest Short Stories Ever Translated and Queer: LGBT Writing from Ancient Times to Yesterday.