Archive · 5 Sep 2026
Andrea Bajani’s The Anniversary confronts family patriarchy and fascism
The novel follows a man remembering why he stopped speaking to his parents.
His father controlled the family through fear and violence.
His mother was isolated and had little control over her own life.
The family’s problems were treated as private, so outsiders did not truly help.
The book connects this home-based control to older patriarchal and fascist ideas in Italy.
The narrator slowly understands how his childhood shaped his fear and memories.
He finally changes his telephone number and stops contacting his parents.
The story presents this separation as a difficult way to protect himself.
Andrea Bajani’s 2025 Strega Prize-winning novel follows a narrator who cuts contact with his abusive parents.
The novel portrays the patriarchal family as a system of coercive control linked to Italy’s fascist political heritage.
The narrator’s mother is isolated, prevented from working, subjected to infidelity and domestic violence, and rendered nearly invisible.
Neighbours and police witness the family’s violence but treat it as a private matter requiring no lasting intervention.
After a final phone call from his psychoanalyst’s office, the narrator changes his number and ends contact with his parents to survive.
- Who
- Andrea Bajani, through a narrator modeled around family estrangement, and the narrator’s parents.
- What
- A novel examining domestic abuse, patriarchal family power, estrangement, and links between private totalitarian control and fascist political heritage.
- When
- Published in English in the edition discussed and winner of the 2025 Strega Prize; the narrator’s final break with his parents occurred ten years before the story’s recollections.
- Where
- Italy, with the family moving from Rome to a suburban town in northwest Italy; the novel also refers to migrants living in cities including Rotterdam, New York, and Berlin.
- Why
- To explore how coercive family power and intergenerational trauma shape individuals, and why leaving an abusive family can become necessary for survival.
- Author
- Andrea Bajani
- Book
- The Anniversary
- English translator
- Geoffrey Brock
- Award
- 2025 Strega Prize
- Family setting
- A 1990s Italian family flat and a suburban town in northwest Italy
- Central action
- The narrator ends contact with his parents and changes his telephone number
- Key themes
- Domestic violence, coercive control, patriarchy, fascist inheritance, and family estrangement