Skip to main content

Giulia Caminito

Biography

Giulia Caminito

Giulia Caminito's first novel, THE BIG A (Giunti, 2016), won the Bagutta Opera Prima Prize, the Berto Prize, and the Brancati Giovani Prize. She is also the author of THE DAY WILL COME (Bompiani, 2019), THE LAKE'S WATER IS NEVER SWEET (Bompiani, 2021), and AMATISSIME (Giulio Perrone, 2022). THE LAKE'S WATER IS NEVER SWEET won the 2021 Campiello Prize and was a finalist for the Strega Prize. Caminito’s books have been translated in over 20 countries. She lives in Rome. 

Giulia Caminito

Books by Giulia Caminito

The Lake's Water is Never Sweet
written by Giulia Caminito, translated by Hope Campbell Gustafson - Fiction, Women's Fiction

In the 1990s, Gaia’s family moves from the neglected peripheries of Rome to an idyllic lakeside town in search of a new life that will lift them out of poverty. When Gaia meets two local girls, Agata and Carlotta, the trio builds a fragile friendship throughout their adolescence based as much on their insecurities and jealousies as it is on their mutual affection. Gaia’s encounters with callous boys and contemptuous teachers convince her that she might always be an outsider. Faced with bullying and betrayals among her peers and immense pressure from her mother to excel, Gaia turns inward and her world becomes increasingly insular. Then tragedy strikes her friend group. As more friends slip away and her family fractures, Gaia vows to make the world pay for all the things it has denied her.