Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio [Paperback]

Amara Lakhous (Author), Ann Goldstein (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2008

A compelling mix of social satire and murder mystery.

A small culturally mixed community living in an apartment building in the center of Rome is thrown into disarray when one of the neighbors is murdered. An investigation ensues and as each of the victim’s neighbors is questioned, the reader is offered an all-access pass into the most colorful neighborhood in contemporary Rome. Each character takes his or her turn center-stage, “giving evidence,” recounting his or her story—the dramas of racial identity, the anxieties and misunderstandings born of a life spent on society’s margins, the daily humiliations provoked by mainstream culture’s fears and indifference, preconceptions and insensitivity. What emerges is a moving story that is common to us all, whether we live in Italy or Los Angeles.

This novel is animated by a style that is as colorful as the neighborhood it describes and is characterized by seemingly effortless equipoise that borrows from the cinematic tradition of the Commedia all’Italiana as exemplified by directors such as Federico Fellini.

At the heart of this bittersweet comedy told with affection and sensitivity is a social reality that we often tend to ignore and an anthropological analysis, refreshing in its generosity, that cannot fail to fascinate.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lakhous's prize-winning second novel is a social satire and murder mystery concerning an immigrant-filled apartment complex in Rome. After a murder in the building elevator, each occupant of the Piazza Vittorio—among these, Parviz Mansoor Samadi, an Iranian chef who detests pizza; Benedetta Esposito, an aging concierge from Naples; Iqbal Amir Allah, a Bangladeshi shopkeeper—gets a chapter to relate the truth as he or she knows it (or wants it known), apparently to the police. The odd man out, and the main suspect, is Amedo, a man believed by his neighbors to be a native Italian. The tenants are by turns outraged, disillusioned, defensive and afraid, and their frequently wild testimony teases out intriguing psychological and social insight alongside a playful whodunit plot, exposing the power of fear, racial prejudice and cultural misconception to rob a neighborhood of its humanity. (Oct.)
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From The New Yorker

A cacophony of voices fills this novel, whose putative plot concerns the murder of a man known as the Gladiator in an apartment building in Rome. One by one, the neighbors offer their querulous, seemingly tangential testimony: an Iranian immigrant explains how he sewed his mouth shut when his petition for refugee status was denied; a lonely Peruvian maid confesses, �The TV is my new family�; a grief-stricken woman accuses Chinese restaurateurs of kidnapping her dog; a Milanese professor sees in the daily desecration of the building�s elevator (by litter, by urine) the decline of civilization. The author�s real subject is the heave and crush of modern, polyglot Rome, and he renders the jabs of everyday speech with such precision that the novel feels exclaimed rather than written.
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Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Europa Editions (September 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933372613
• ISBN-13: 978-1933372617
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #77,334 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Human beings need dreams the way fish need water.", October 1, 2008

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio (Paperback)

(3.5 stars) Algerian author Amara Lakhous, now an Italian resident, pens a sly satire of an immigrant's life in Italy, exploring the murder of a young man in the elevator of an apartment building adjacent to Piazza Vittorio to show the hidden and not-so-hidden prejudices of Roman residents toward "outsiders." The victim, Lorenzo Manfredini, a young hood also known as the Gladiator, had repeatedly defaced and urinated in the building's elevator, earning the enmity of every resident. As residents and local merchants tell their stories to a police inspector, their hidden agendas and casual resentments against immigrants surface. Amedeo, a resident uniformly admired by everyone, thought to be an Italian volunteer who helps immigrants deal with Roman bureaucracy, is sought for the crime. No one has seen him since the murder.

Lakhous cleverly creates twelve unique voices as each person tells "the truth according to...", alternating these separate voices with "wails" from Amadeo as he comments on what the residents say. Amedeo, who speaks Italian like a native, provides a running commentary on Roman life, pointing up the contrasts between what people say to other Italians and what they say and do about their immigrant neighbors behind their backs.

As each person provides additional information about Amedeo and the victim, the reader comes to know characters like Parviz Mansoor Samadi, who has barely escaped from Iran, leaving his wife and four children behind; Benedetta Esposito, "the oldest concierge in Rome," a Neapolitan whose suspicions of all immigrants is determined by their behavior with regard to the temperamental elevator; and Iqbal Amir Allah, from Bangladesh, whose observations about Amedeo's understanding of Muslim customs lead him to say that "Signor Amedeo is as good as mango juice." The owner of a local bar, a neighborhood fish seller, and the police inspector also give their impressions of Amedeo, the building residents, and immigrants in general.

The characters' gradual revelations and Amedeo's commentary change the reader's perceptions, and as the plot becomes more complex, the novella matches the sympathies one develops for the immigrants with the understanding one evolves for those who resent the immigrants' perceived privileges. Often hilarious, the novella carries an edge, and though the author is not heavy-handed with his satire, his points are obvious--and repeated--as each character reveals prejudices and reactions to prejudice. The conclusion takes on a somewhat different tone and style as police inspector Mauro Bettarini, believing that "truth is like a coin: it has two faces," gives two different possibilities to explain the murder. The novella becomes more impressionistic and more ambiguous, and readers may be surprised by the concluding pages. n Mary Whipple

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun, engaging and thought-provoking, December 4, 2008

By 

M. DELORENZO "DeLorenzo" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio (Paperback)

A deceptively intelligent un-novel that brings you a cast of interesting characters, with sections of charmingly unreliable narration from each. A sort of Roman "Tales of the City", it takes you through the improbable intersections of the characters' lives as you learn which character is the murderer. Brilliant and very Italian.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Humorous "Clash of Civilizations", May 2, 2009

By 

Alston Fitts (Selma, AL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio (Paperback)

Amiri Lakhous' CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS succeeds both as a whodunit, a humorous novel and a shrewd analysis of the "clash of civilizations" in Rome. Lakhous himself had to flee his native Algeria because he wasn't "Muslim enough;" but of course his being Muslim at all unnerves many simple souls in his adopted country of Italy. Another writer might have become shrill and bitter; but Lakhous sees the humorous side of the relentless misunderstandings which propell his narrative. His Italian characters themselves illustrate a variety of regional cultures -- I was much amused (as an Alabamian) to learn that the bustling citizens of Milan feel about the laid-back residents of Naples roughly what New Yorkers feel about residents of the Deep South! I look forward with great interest to more novels by this fascinating Algerian-Italian author, who has the rare gift of entertaining while he informs.