Claudia Durastanti is based in Rome, she has written four novels in Italian. She is co-founder of the Italian Literature Festival in London and is on the board of the Turin Book Fair. She is the Italian translator of Joshua Cohen, Donna Haraway, Ocean Vuong, and the most recent edition of The Great Gatsby. Two of Claudia’s novels have been translated into English: Cleopatra Goes to Prison, translated by Christine Donougher, and Strangers I Know translated by Elizabeth Harris.

Strangers I Know is Claudia’s fourth novel and the second one translated into English. A finalist for the Premio Strega in 2019, Strangers I Know has been translated into twenty-one languages. It is a first-person account of an unconventional family. Where Both parents are deaf and have no sign language in common – which allows communications to be rife with misinterpretations. The narrator comes of age in this strange, and increasingly estranged, household split between a small village in southern Italy and New York City. Strangers I Know is a profound portrait of an unconventional family that makes us look anew at how language shapes our understanding of ourselves.

Strangers I know is a novel, based on Claudia’s own family history. It is part autobiography, part mythology, part essay.