Fish Island Books presents Ilaria, or The Conquest of Disobedience

Join us for an evening in conversation with author Gabriella Zalapì and translator Adriana Hunter, celebrating the release of the English translation of Ilaria, or The Conquest of Disobedience, published by Linden Editions. 

A panel discussion will be chaired by Alex Peake-Tomkinson, offering insight into the novel’s themes as well as the writing and translation processes. Aperitivo will be available with the option to enjoy a spritz during the panel with an upgraded ticket. After the talk, stay for drinks and conversation by the canal. 

One afternoon in May, 8 year old Ilaria gets into the car with her dad, expecting to go out to dinner with her mum and sister. Instead, she is taken across the border, on a whirlwind journey around Italy, from Trieste to Rome and Sicily, sleeping in roadside hotels, singing to the radio, and fearing her often drunk, but loving father. Torn between her life in Geneva with her mother and the seemingly never ending Italian road trip with her father, Ilaria doesn’t know who to side with in her parents’ acrimonious separation. This deeply moving novel explores the fear and confusion felt during this chaotic kidnapping, through the dreamlike eyes of the young girl. Intimate and poignant, Ilaria follows the life of a girl who is learning to navigate the world on her own.

Gabriella Zalapì is a writer and visual artist, born (1972) to an English-Italian-Swiss family in Milan. Her previous novel, Antonia (2019), received the Grand Prix de l’héroïne Madame Figaro, and the Prix Biblomedia. Zalapì uses her own family history as the basis for her work, taking photographs, archive material, and memoirs and composing them into a disquieting play of history and fiction. She has been awarded the Prix Femina des Lycéens 2024, the Prix Millepages 2024, and the Prix Blù Jean-Marc Roberts 2024 for Illaria, or The Conquest of Disobedience. She now lives and works in Paris.

Adriana Hunter, award-winning translator, has brought more than 100 books to English-language readers. Her recent work includes the international bestseller The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier and three volumes of Sapiens: A Graphic History based on Yuval Noah Harari’s global phenomenon, Sapiens. She has been awarded the 2011 Scott Moncrieff Prize and the 2013 French-American Foundation and Florence Gould Foundation Translation Prize, and her translations have been shortlisted twice for the International Booker Prize.

Alex Peake-Tomkinson is a London-based freelance journalist writing for the Spectator, the Financial Times, the Guardian, The Economist, Prospect, the i paper, the Evening Standard, the Times Literary Supplement and many others. She writes about culture, lifestyle and travel. She has chaired several literary events including the Edinburgh International Book Festival and the London Book Fair.

Ticket options:

Standard ticket: Book + Ticket £15

Standard ticket with drink: Book + Ticket + Aperol spritz £25

Flexible ticket: Ticket only £5 (redeemable against book purchase)