Niccolò Ammaniti's dystopian novel Anna depicts a ravaged Sicily in the years after an epidemic has wiped out the adult population. The island is without power or communication, left to gangs of feral children. Anna has never seen anyone over 14 alive. The deadly virus becomes active at the onset of puberty, so as she approaches maturity Anna protects her little brother, Astor, nursing hope in the face of inevitability. Ammaniti won the Italian Strega Prize for I'm Not Scared, and Anna has the same taut narrative, with straight-from-the-bow suspense, but its mark is philosophical. There are echoes of Cormac McCarthy's The Road in the children's journey to find a cure, scavenging among dead bodies and the detritus of capitalism. The book is concerned not only with the will to live but also with what makes us alive: loving someone, losing them, choosing risk over fear. Whether at 14 or 50, all of us are going to die. What matters, Ammaniti tells us, is how we live: "A short life is as good as a long one."
