{"product_id":"so-people-know-its-me-isbn-9781805331742","title":"So People Know It's Me","description":"\u003cb\u003eIn this audaciously original debut, a teenager is sent to juvenile prison off the coast of Naples where he dreams—and writes—of a better future\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBringing 90s Naples to life, this virtuosic Italian novel is an extraordinarily moving and thought-provoking look at criminal justice and life in an isolated juvenile detention centre\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eZeno is 15, a child in the eyes of the law, but he grew up long ago in the dusty heat of a crime-riddled neighbourhood in Naples. Winding down cobbled streets on his motorbike, he started his career as a petty thief to supplement his mother's income and, every now and then, take his girlfriend Natalina out for pizza in the city’s starlit piazzas. A quick hand at pickpocketing and selling drugs, Zeno is confronted by another boy from a rival gang who has been tasked with taking out the competition. He shoots three times, the boy drops dead, and Zeno is sent to Nisida, an infamous juvenile prison-island off the Neapolitan coast.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSeparated from all he loves by the cruel, glittering sea, with a cell window looking out at the distant beaches, Zeno promises a prison school teacher he’ll write down the story of his life in exchange for a visit home at Christmas. But the sea has eyes everywhere, and someone on the outside wants revenge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoldly original and deeply humane, \u003ci\u003eSo People Know It’s Me\u003c\/i\u003e unleashes Zeno’s luminous, unguarded and defiant voice – dreaming of a fragile future beyond Nisida’s walls. Translated from a unique blend of Italian and Neapolitan dialect, this is a mesmerising and powerful debut novel, the winner of the Nabokov Prize, borne out of the author’s own work as a criminal lawyer called upon to defend minors.\"Love Ferrante? Read this intelligent Neapolitan writer... Benvenuto’s superb debut, \u003ci\u003eSo People Know It’s Me,\u003c\/i\u003e follows one young man’s self-realisation in a foreboding juvenile prison.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Telegraph\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"An extraordinary tale of crime and punishment in Naples. . . Moving and thought-provoking, the novel deserves to appear on prize lists. It captures, with effective brevity, a city of splendour and squalor and a childhood curtailed.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e—Financial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrancesca Maria Benvenuto\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Naples in 1986. She graduated with a Law degree in 2009 and completed a PhD in International Criminal Law in 2012. That same year she moved to Paris to study for a Master's Degree in Criminal Law at the Sorbonne. She then started her own law firm in Paris, where she currently works as a criminal lawyer. She is also studying for a Modern Languages degree at the University of Turin. Her debut novel, \u003ci\u003eSo People Know It's Me\u003c\/i\u003e, was published in Italy by Mondadori in 2024\u003cb\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eElizabeth Harris\u003c\/b\u003e’s recent translations of Italian prose include works by Francesco Pacifico, Andrea Bajani, Claudia Durastanti and Antonio Tabucchi. She has been awarded an NEA Translation Fellowship, the Italian Prose in Translation Award, and the National Translation Award. Elizabeth lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.There’s a \u003ci\u003esurvegliante \u003c\/i\u003eon my wing who’s a real zero, and that’s the truth.\u003cbr\u003eHis name’s Costantino and he’s barely got any teeth.\u003cbr\u003eJust two in his whole head.\u003cbr\u003eHe’s butt ugly.\u003cbr\u003eA \u003ci\u003esurvegliante\u003c\/i\u003e’s what you on the outside would call a guard, but to me he’s a \u003ci\u003esurvegliante\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003eYou see what I’m saying?\u003cbr\u003eSo I made this promise to Mrs Martina, our teacher here in Nisida. Our Italian teacher.\u003cbr\u003eI promised to write down what I’m thinking, get it on paper.\u003cbr\u003eShe says if I do, she’ll say nice stuff about me to the Warden so I’ll get a furlough at Christmas. Two days, almost two whole days: evening on the 24th, and then the 25th.\u003cbr\u003eBut then she reads it for me, to make sure it’s clear.\u003cbr\u003eSo I’m telling you right now, someone’s correcting me after. Cause I’m no cheater.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn my life, I’ve stole, dealt, even killed somebody, but I never cheated nobody, cause I got my pride and most of all my honor.\u003cbr\u003eAnd this is the only way I know how to talk. So, Teach, let’s get things straight.\u003cbr\u003eI’ll write everything you want me to. Then you have who you want read it.\u003cbr\u003eBut leave in a couple mistakes, so people know it’s me. It’s important it’s me.\u003cbr\u003eIf not, I won’t know myself when I look in the mirror. You do the commas, though.\u003cbr\u003eI don’t know how to do the commas, you know I don’t like them.\u003cbr\u003ePeriods got more pride.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eoctoBer 23, 1991 \u003cbr\u003eSo my name’s Zeno. A strange name—\u003ci\u003e’nu nomm’ strano\u003c\/i\u003e. First cause it starts with Z that’s last in the alphabet.\u003cbr\u003eIf it was up to me, I’d of chose something better, some- thing scary, Rambo, maybe, something American.\u003cbr\u003eOr something starting with A, cause A’s always first, so that makes it best.\u003cbr\u003eBut then, Teach, you told me Zeno’s nice. That it’s out of a book, some famous character, some guy who smokes and smokes and smokes, just like me, and he never quits, though he tries like crazy.\u003cbr\u003ePoor guy, he’s worse off than me.\u003cbr\u003eBut I’m not trying to quit, cause I look good when I smoke, plus if I don’t got a cigarette, I don’t know what to do with my hands. Been smoking since I was eleven.\u003cbr\u003eYou also said I had to read the book about “Zeno who smokes,” and that I need to quit smoking, cause it’s bad for me. Not now though. I don’t got the time. Some other time\u003cbr\u003eI’ll read it. Promise. Don’t worry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I’m in here, the opposite of out there.\u003cbr\u003eI’m in the Nisida Juvenile Detention Center cause I killed somebody, shot him, that is.\u003cbr\u003eI mean, you don’t need a gun to kill somebody, there’s knives, or your bare hands, or you can wear gloves, or there’s bombs, or you can kick somebody in the head. Plenty of choices to kill somebody. Not so many to die.\u003cbr\u003eI fired three times, just sorta at him and he fell over, all bloody.\u003cbr\u003eI was on my scooter and it was crazy hot out. I escaped into Forcella, but they caught me cause everybody saw me—it was morning.\u003cbr\u003eThey picked me up on Vico Carbonari. And they went and told my mom a few hours later, without me there.\u003cbr\u003eI don’t know the dead guy’s name, maybe he had a good name, better than mine.\u003cbr\u003eHe wanted to shoot me and I did it first, cause I know how to use a piece, but I can’t tell you who taught me.\u003cbr\u003eWhen I got here, the prison penguin, the nun, she told me it was pointless to kill him cause now he was free and I was in jail.\u003cbr\u003eBut you tell me: who should die first, me or him?\u003cbr\u003eSo I told this penguin: “You don’t know he’s free! Maybe there’s prisons after, what do you know, Nun, you’re not dead. You’re still alive, unfortunately. So go screw yourself.” That upset the penguin pretty good and she said to find out about “after,” I had to talk with Don Vicienzo, the prison priest. But he’s a liar, that guy, he’s always talking crap.\u003cbr\u003e“After,” to me, is what there is when you die.\u003cbr\u003eAnd no one knows, not even priests. No one’s ever been, but people just make up a bunch of stupid shit anyway.\u003cbr\u003eSo I really don’t give a shit about after, Teach. Just think about now. That’s good enough for me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey put me in Nisida, and I really don’t like it, cause it’s an island. Like Sicily, only littler and no cities.\u003cbr\u003eI wanted to be in Santa Maria Capua Vetere. It’s on a road, not the water.\u003cbr\u003eIn Santa Maria Capua Vetere I could get out all the notes I want, throw them out the window, and someone could toss answers back at me from the sidewalk.\u003cbr\u003eI could even keep up my business—but I ain’t writing about that.\u003cbr\u003eI could send kisses to my Natalina, my girlfriend—I’ll tell you more about her later!\u003cbr\u003eBut they put me in here, on this isolated island.\u003cbr\u003eI told the Warden if a place opens up in Santa Maria Capua Vetere they should transfer me, not Totore, cause he’s a bastard and don’t deserve it.\u003cbr\u003ePlus, Totore goes home next year.\u003cbr\u003eMe, I got a good two and a half years left in here, by the sea, with all the other juvies, cause I’m fifteen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter that, you’ll send me to Poggioreale Prison—August 3, 1994, to be exact—and you know it too, Boss. Cause that’s what’s written down, and things written down are a real bitch. Nice gift they’ll get me for my birthday, huh? When I’m legal.\u003cbr\u003eThe sea’s useless here at Nisida.\u003cbr\u003eWhat’s useful for us is what we can really use, otherwise we might as well just go and kill ourselves, and that ain’t fair.\u003cbr\u003eAnd you won’t even let us swim in the sea, cause you think we’ll try and escape!\u003cbr\u003eSo we only get to look at it.\u003cbr\u003eMe, I don’t know how to swim, I swear. I don’t want to escape. Just get wet, is all. Use a raft, those floaty things.\u003cbr\u003eBoss, if you read this, and a place opens up at Santa Maria Capua Vetere, keep me in mind, I’m always available.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Forcella, where we live, there’s a lot of whores and it’s not like you can hide it.\u003cbr\u003eYou see a whole bunch of them out there.\u003cbr\u003eThey’re standing around, each by their building, at their regular time. Everybody knows them, even little kids. But the ones who know them best live in the rich neighborhoods. These guys pretend like they don’t know whores exist. They tell everybody all that exists is mom-women and wife-women.\u003cbr\u003eBut that ain’t true.\u003cbr\u003eEverybody knows there’s something else besides.\u003cbr\u003eAnd I’m fine with my mom being something else besides and that she does all three together.\u003cbr\u003eShe hasn’t sent me word since I been in here, over a year now.\u003cbr\u003eBut Teach, you told me I can go home two days at Christmas, the evening of the 24th and the 25th, and that’s so great, cause it means she didn’t forget me.\u003cbr\u003eYou’re always saying nobody ever forgets their kids.\u003cbr\u003eBut that ain’t true, cause time passes even for moms and everybody’s got their own life and their own problems. You always got your daughter right there keeping an eye on her, so you can’t forget her.\u003cbr\u003eBut not my mom.\u003cbr\u003eMaybe first she forgets one of my eyes, then the other, then my nose, legs, arms, till she has to put me back together again inside her head. I hope she looks at my photo some- times so she can remember me.\u003cbr\u003eBut my father, I really don’t give a fuck if he remembers me. I don’t know where he is now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo, the truth is I do know, and so do you. Everybody knows.\u003cbr\u003eThe social worker in here—she’s stupid—she’s always saying I should write my dad.\u003cbr\u003eA letter.\u003cbr\u003eSo I pretend I don’t know how to write. And please don’t say no different. Teach, you said the social worker’s stupid too, but this time she’s also right. So I promised I’d write him a letter.\u003cbr\u003eBut not now.\u003cbr\u003eBefore he was in Poggioreale, then they put him in Bergamo, still in jail, never out.\u003cbr\u003eI never heard of Bergamo.\u003cbr\u003eBut it’s up there, in Northern Italy, you told me, and it’s windy and foggy and cold.\u003cbr\u003eYou said it’s awful in the North. You think it sucks up there, huh?\u003cbr\u003eI got a sister who was a whore too, for a little while, not too long, and then she just ended up a wife.\u003cbr\u003eI can’t tell you the guy’s name she married. I could get killed if I do. Let’s call him Baldy.\u003cbr\u003eHim I can’t stand. I didn’t go to the wedding, my mom neither—we weren’t invited.\u003cbr\u003eBaldy told my sister—her name’s Vittoria—that when I get out she’s not allowed to talk to me.\u003cbr\u003eBut I don’t give a shit, and I’m talking to her even if he says no.\u003cbr\u003eBefore this guy, I took care of Vittoria and Mom, with my business.","brand":"Pushkin Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233560998117,"sku":"NP9781805331742","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781805331742.jpg?v=1767736855","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/so-people-know-its-me-isbn-9781805331742","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}