An evocative coming of age story set on the Tuscan riviera in summer 1972 by the internationally bestselling author of The Hummingbird.

'Veronesi truly knows and loves all matters of the heart' - IAN MCEWAN

Black September tells the story of the blossoming of a twelve-year-old boy, Gigio Bellandi, during a summer in Versilia, Tuscany, in 1972: his discovery of music, reading, restlessness, desire, love - and then the unthinkable, lightning-fast interruption of it all. It reconstructs with vivid precision the images, smells, colours, and sounds that animated that lost season, and the irreversible event that overturns it.

But this is also a novel about the evocative power of words and the seductive power of language, as it tells the story of an explosion of a pure and surprising talent, also destined to last forever: that of literature and translation.