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SUNDAY, APRIL 12 | 4:30PM
ITALIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE SAN FRANCISCO
Emanuela Anechoum
Tangerinn
Translated from Italian by Lucy Rand
MODERATOR
Enrico Rotelli
EVENT IN ENGLISH
photo credit: Dario Nicoletti
EVENT FREE | OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
A preview of the Festival told by Emanuela Anechoum
A luminous debut about the search for belonging, the tension between departure and return, and the legacy of migration, Tangerinn is a novel of memory, a stirring meditation on culture, identity, and inheritance set between London and the windswept beaches of southern Italy.
Mina is thirty and living in London. She fled there at twenty to reinvent herself to escape her small-town past, but a decade later she is drifting, untethered and uncertain. When her Moroccan-born father Omar dies, she returns to her childhood home on the Calabrian coast, where he ran a bar called the Tangerinn. It was more than just a bar—it was a gathering place, a haven for migrants and misfits, a dream that Mina’s sister, Aisha, is struggling to keep alive.
In searching for traces of her father, Mina begins to piece together her own fractured sense of identity. As she reconnects with the memories embedded in the land, she must confront what it means to belong—not just to a place, but to a lineage, a language, a self.
With precise, sensual prose and an acute sensitivity to atmosphere and emotion, Anechoum delivers a novel that is at once tender and fierce, local and borderless, as intimate as it is political.
QUOTES & ACCOLADES
A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE
A New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Lit Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2026
WINNER
Città di Lugnano Debut Novel Prize
Mastercard Debut Novel Prize
Bancarella Select Prize
FINALIST
Rapallo BPER Bank Prize
John Fante Debut Novel prize
Città di San Salvo Prize
“Tangerinn is the kind of story I hope to encounter more often. In a novel where almost every character is a migrant, changing countries is practically a fact of life. It sounds like being human.”—Joumana Khatib, The New York Times Book Review
“For all its sharp detail, this is ultimately a warm novel about connection, loss and imagining place.“—Naoise Dolan, author of The Happy Couple
“Like Latronico’s Perfection, Tangerinn is a sort of millennial coming-of-age novel—a story of blooming beyond the social images and pressures that can get confused with a meaningful life.”—Asymptote Journal
“Imbued with delicate irony and tremendous psychological and political acumen. Italian literature has been waiting years for a novel like this.”—Vincenzo Latronico, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Perfection
“An audaciously delicate tale of transnational resilience, Tangerinn delivers an utterly heart-wrenching story of love and loss across space and time. Reading Anechoum is a balm for many of us generationally restless souls, very much attached to our mobility and independence, while still searching for peace and belonging.”—Xochitl Gonzalez, author of Olga Dies Dreaming
“This remarkable, brilliantly observant story digs deep into questions of home, identity and belonging with a confidence of prose that showcases Emanuela Anechoum as a writer of enormous talent. A must-read.”—Zoe Apostolides, author of The Homecoming
“Stunning… Anechoum shows impressive literary range, gliding seamlessly between moments of intense grief and unexpected humor. This beautifully rendered literary novel will resonate with readers drawn to nuanced explorations of heritage, loss, and finding the courage to embrace one’s complete identity.”—Booklist
“Early comparisons to Elena Ferrante and Sally Rooney have certainly not hurt the prospects of this debut novel, which centers on the rocky grieving process of a 30-year-old Italian Moroccan woman who returns home from London to the Calabrian coast to face her emotional inheritance after the death of her semi-estranged father.”—The New York Times, Most Anticipated Books of January 2026
“An honest, vulnerable story of home, family, and what it means to find your place in the world.”—Lit Hub, Most Anticipated Books of 2026
“Propulsive... Anechoum’s prose, in Rand’s translation, is unassuming yet exquisitely detailed, with keen observations falling thick and fast throughout the novel... An elegy with momentum and teeth.”—Kirkus Reviews
“A Londoner returns to her Calabrian hometown after her father’s death, seeking closure and emotional clarity... With burnished, penetrating eloquence, the novel Tangerinn explores the entwined complexities of cultural and personal identity.”—Foreword Reviews
“The earnest story of an Italian woman exploring her Moroccan roots in the wake of her father’s death... Anechoum imbues the narrative with a sense of intimacy... This is worth a look.”—Publishers Weekly
“Incandescent.”—Rolling Stone
“Compelling.”—La Stampa
“Anechoum’s debut possesses a depth and beauty of prose that are truly rare.”—Il manifesto
“The novel carefully addresses burning issues of dual identity, uprootedness, and religious tensions.”—la Repubblica
“One of the novel’s most successful aspects is Anechoum’s ability to depict emotional bonds through evocative, intimate, and at times poignant details.”—Mangrovia
“The reader feels both the weight of absence and the possibility of reinventing oneself.”—Il Libraio
THE AUTHOR
Emanuela Anechoum was born in Reggio Calabria in 1991 and lives in Rome. After completing her studies, she began working in publishing in London before relocating to Italy. Her writing has appeared in Vice, Doppiozero, and Marvin Rivista. Tangerinn is her debut novel.
THE TRANSLATOR
Lucy Rand is a literary translator, editor, and English-language teacher. Her translations include the international bestseller The Phone Box at the End of the World by Laura Imai Messina. She lives in Norwich, England.
THE MODERATOR
Enrico Rotelli is an Italian writer and journalist. His articles about U.S. literature received the Premio Amerigo 2020. He translated The Great Gatsby, and his most recent book, Nanda e io, was awarded with the Visintin Award and the City of Como International Literary Award. He lives between San Francisco and Venice.