num_pages: 168
description: This is a story told by a boy in his thirteenth year, recorded in his secret diary. His life is about to change; his world, about to open. He lives in Montedidio—God’s Mountain—a cluster of alleys in the heart of Naples. He brings a paycheck home every Saturday from Mast’Errico’s carpentry workshop where he sweeps the floor. He is on his way to becoming a man—his boy’s voice is abandoning him. His wooden boomerang is neither toy nor tool, but something in between. Then there is Maria, the thirteen-year-old girl who lives above him and, like so many girls, is wiser than he.  She carries the burden of a secret life herself. She’ll speak to him for the first time this summer. There is also his friendship with a cobbler named Rafaniello, a Jewish refugee who has escaped the horrors of the Holocaust, who has no idea how long he’s been on this earth, and who is said to sprout wings for a blessed few. It is 1963, a young man’s summer of discovery. A time for a boy with innocent hands and a pure heart to look beyond the ordinary in everyday things to see the far-reaching landscape, and all of its possibilities, from a rooftop terrace on God’s Mountain. 
language: English
title: God's Mountain
titlecomplete: God's Mountain
genres: Italian Literature, Roman, Historical, European Literature, Italy, 21st Century, Novels, Literature, Coming Of Age, Fiction
ratings_count: 2472
places: Naples
awards: awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Prix Femina
category: Étranger
publisher: Penguin Publishing Group