num_pages: 296
description: Gerald Samper, an effete Englishman, lives on a hilltop in Tuscany. He is a ghostwriter for celebrities, and a foodie, whose weird tastes include 'Mussels in Chocolate and Garlic' and 'Fernet Branca Ice Cream'. His idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, a vulgar woman from a former Soviet republic now run by gangsters, notably male members of her family. She is a composer in a neo-folk style who claims to be writing a score for a trendy Italian film director. The neighbours' lives disastrously intertwine. The entourages of the rock star and the director come and go; mysterious black helicopters bring news of mayhem in Voynova, Marta's homeland; and along the way the English obsession with Tuscany is satirized mercilessly. World rights for "Cooking with Fernet Branca" are controlled by Faber. Rights for Germany have already been sold.
language: English
title: Cooking With Fernet Branca
titlecomplete: Cooking With Fernet Branca
genres: 21st Century, Travel, Comedy, Cooking, Food, Humor, Italy, Fiction, Contemporary, British Literature
ratings_count: 1710
places: Italy
series: Gerald Samper 
awards: awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Booker Prize
category: Longlist, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize
category: Comic Fiction
publisher: Faber & Faber Ltd