A woman stands naked, silhouetted against a window in a purple room. It's the only memory Sergio has of the week leading up to the accident that almost killed him when he was scuba diving off the Tuscan coast. He remembers nothing else about that woman, but the love he feels for her will drive him to delve into the mystery surrounding those days that are missing from his memory. The Purple Room is a magnetic and gripping psychological drama, but filled with those moments of bittersweet comedy, misunderstanding and heartbreak that all too often punctuate every search for a partner. Sergio's is a journey of self-discovery, in which a deep and uncompromising self-awareness goes hand in hand with the universal desire to find someone to love. Winner of the Carver Prize and Carlo Cassola Prize for Literature. EDITORIAL REVIEWS "Intense and moving. Delicate like the touch of cotton sheets in the summer. A page-turner, kidnaps the reader with impeccable style and storytelling worth a prize." - Booksblog "Casiraghi's style is smooth, tight and spare." - Il Corriere della Sera "A deeply human journey, both painful and magnetic. (...) A bittersweet ending which leaves you with food for thought and a half-smile on your face." DG MAG "A craftily-woven plot that sucks the reader in with the pace of a psychological thriller, for such becomes Sergio's life, filled with questions, traps, revelations, all leading to the final discovery of oneself." Stilos "The story unfolds in a gripping and suspended atmosphere, where euphoria, desperation and self-doubt come together in equal measure (...) Casiraghi's novel is like a mirror where, beyond the twists and turns of the plot, the reader finds another tale to identify with. It is one of those stories in which, even without accidents or memory loss, each one of us can become the main character and, in the end, must come to terms with the past..." Liberazione "The Purple Room runs on two tracks: on one hand, Sergio's present life, the aftermath of his failed marriage, the bittersweet conflict with his teenage daughter, the comforting presence of his close friends; on the other, the stubborn search for the image of a woman he cannot forget. These tracks are joined together by a clever alternation of tenses. The present tense gives us what Sergio sees in front of his eyes, like a photograph. The simple past makes us dive into the narrator's mind, where his memories are kept. At times, the two tenses blend together in the same paragraph, bringing out with great force the dream-like texture of this novel." Sguardomobile.it
About the Author: Mauro Casiraghi was born in Milan, Italy. After receiving a degree in English and Creative Writing in Montreal, Canada, and publishing his first short stories in English, he went back to Italy to work as a successful screenwriter for cinema and television. He is the author of three novels, a collection of short stories, and a book of interviews on the art of writing. His first novel, The Purple Room, received the Carver Prize and Carlo Cassola Prize for literature.