American & Canadian Book Launch  

Alessandro Giardino

The Caravaggio Syndrome – A Novel ( Rutgers, UP: 2024) 

 

 

Pre-launch 

 

April 4 @ 5:30 PM – St. Lawrence University, Art Gallery 

LINK: Brush Art Gallery - SLU

With Lewis Professor Marcella Salvi 

 

American Book Launch 

 

April 22 @6:30 PM – New York City, Casa Italiana, NYU

LINK:  Casa Italiana - NYU

 

Canadian Book Launch

 

May 10@ 5:30 PM – Montreal, N’était-ce pas l’été (Bookstore), in collaboration with Italian Cultural Institute 

LINK : ICI Montreal

 

All events are free and open to the public !

 

 

Now available in English. A contemporary Italian classic !

 

Leyla is a headstrong Brooklyn-born art historian at a prestigious upstate New York college. When she meets feckless young computer technician Pablo at a party, she quickly becomes pregnant with his child. There’s only one problem: she can’t stand him. And one more problem: her student Michael wants Pablo for himself.

 

Amid this love triangle, the objects of Leyla and Michael’s study take on a life of their own. Trying to learn more about Caravaggio’s masterpiece The Seven Works of Mercy, they pore over the journal and prison writings of maverick 17th-century utopian philosopher Tommaso Campanella, which, as if by enchantment, transport them back four centuries to Naples. And while the past and present miraculously converge, Leyla, Michael, and Tommaso embark on a voyage of self-discovery in search of a new life.

 

In this fusion of historical, queer, and speculative fiction, Alessandro Giardino combines the intellectual playfulness of Umberto Eco with the psychological finesse of Michael Cunningham

 

 The Caravaggio Syndrome; comments from readers:

 

 

" The Caravaggio Syndrome is the dramatic convergence of five characters in two different centuries, beautifully weaved together. It is a book about love, resistance, escape, and solitude.”
   ~Dalal Mawad, CNN Senior Producer, award-winning journalist, and author of All She Lost 

 

"A luminous and very powerful story."  

~Elena Favilli, founder & editor-in-chief of Rebel Girls and coauthor of the New York Times bestselling Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls 

 

"Alessandro Giardino has written a genre-expanding novel sure to please artists, philosophers, Italophiles, and anyone who simply loves a good story."   

~Christopher Castellani, Los Angeles Times and New York Times bestselling author of Leading Men: A Novel 

 

"In this surprising debut novel, Alessandro Giardino's writing moves on the page like the wing of a Baroque angel. It doubles and unfolds revealing the Caravaggesque play of light and shadow that unites the lives of its protagonists." 

 ~Gian Maria Annovi, author of Pier Paolo Pasolini: Performing Authorship 

 

"This novel enchants, seduces, and transports Naples into the echo of different eras, all coming together through the voice of the author as in a play of mirrors where Caravaggio’s appearance is nothing more than another hiding strategy." 

 ~Mariella Pandolfi, professor emerita of anthropology at Université de Montréal, Canada 

 

For further information, visit:  The Caravaggio Syndrome