The Solitude of Prime Numbers

THE AWARD-WINNING, MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER Discover the heartbreakingly beautiful novel about the intertwined destinies of two friends brought together by childhood tragedy. 'Surprising, intimate and deeply moving' John Boyne, bestselling author of The Heart's Invisible Furies 'Mesmerising' Good Housekeeping A prime number is inherently a solitary thing: it can only be divided by itself, or by one; it never truly fits with another. Alice and Mattia also move on their own axes, alone with their personal tragedies. As a child Alice's overbearing father drove her first to a terrible skiing accident, and then to anorexia. When she meets Mattia she recognises a kindred spirit, and Mattia reveals to Alice his terrible secret: that as a boy he abandoned his mentally-disabled twin sister in a park to go to a party, and when he returned, she was nowhere to be found. These two irreversible episodes mark Alice and Mattia's lives for ever, and as they grow into adulthood their destinies seem irrevocably intertwined. But then a chance sighting of a woman who could be Mattia's sister forces a lifetime of secret emotion to the surface. A meditation on loneliness and love, The Solitude of Prime Numbers asks, can we ever truly be whole when we're in love with another? Praise for The Solitude of Prime Numbers: 'Clear, heartbreakingly precise prose , the youngest ever winner of the prestigious Premio Strega (the Italian Man Booker)... a stunning achievement' Daily Mail 'Very accomplished... melancholic, but strangely beautiful ' Guardian 'This astute, aching contemplation of solitude has a power to make us all feel a little less alone. A love story told with astonishing perceptiveness and remarkable subtlety' Stefan Merrill Block, author of The Story of Forgetting 'Incredibly poetic and powerful exploring complex relationships, friendship and trauma' 5-star reader review 'Will break your heart' 5-star reader review '[My] new favourite' 5-star reader review