I will stay here

Author's name: Marco Balzano

"Haunting and powerful" - Booklist
“Quietly devastating… Balzano’s unfussy style heightens the intensity of this story based on true events.” – Publishers Weekly
“A heartbreaking historical novel about the effects of extraordinary events on ordinary people.” – Forward Reviews
“Exquisitely drawn… a quiet but heartbreaking novel.” – Irish Examiner

When war arrives somewhere, or a flood occurs, people flee. At least that's what most people do; but not Trina.

In 1939, an idyllic mountain village in South Tyrol, Italy, faces its toughest challenge yet. Mussolini's fascist government gives the German-speaking population a choice between emigrating to Germany or remaining in Italy as second-class citizens. Teacher Trena, along with her husband, Erich, chooses her village and her home. When the fascists forbid her from working, she continues to teach children in secret in basements and barns. When the government decides to build a dam that will flood the homes and fields, Trena resists with everything she has.

A warm and intense novel that not only presents us with the history of a small community in the face of a major catastrophe, but also brilliantly depicts the character of an ordinary woman who bravely and steadfastly resisted the forces of evil that controlled the fate of the world.

Marco Balzano works as a teacher and lecturer in Milan. His works have won numerous prestigious literary awards. His fourth novel, "I Will Stay Here," topped bestseller lists, won more than ten major awards, and has been translated into several languages. It is the author's first novel to be published in Arabic, with a beautiful translation by Amani Fawzi Habashi that preserves the spirit of the original text.