“Steal You Away is also about a boy faced with difficult moral choices that will define his future. It traces the path to Ammaniti’s follow-up, I’m Not Scared, the global bestseller that became a hit film in 2003. In the end, we get two heart-wrenching love stories for the price of one. This young storyteller exercises the confidence, honesty and sensibility of a master without spilling a drop of sweat.”
The Times

“Ammaniti beautifully evokes the lopsided streets of an Italian backwater and, especially in Pietro’s surprising friendship with the prettiest girl in the village, the shadow life of childhood.”
The New Yorker

In a tiny Italian village, a young boy named Pietro is growing up tormented by bullies and ignored by his parents. When an aging playboy, Graziano Biglia, returns to town, a change is in the air: Pietro decides to take on the bullies, his lonely teacher Flora finds romance with the town’s prodigal son, and the inept janitor at the school proclaims his love for his favorite prostitute. But the village isn’t ready for such change, and when Graziano seduces and forgets Flora, both she and Pietro’s tentative hopes seem crushed forever. With great tenderness, Ammaniti shines light on the heart-wrenching failures and quiet redemptions of ordinary people trying to live extraordinary lives. I’ll Steal You Away is a fresh and classic story of a boy learning to be a man that delivers on the promise of Ammaniti’s acclaimed debut.