A Very Cold Winter - Fausta Cialente

A novel of secrets and female solidarity set in post-war Milan, by one of Italy’s most significant women writers. In A Very Cold Winter, it is 1946 and Milan is in ruins. A woman named Camilla opens her illegally occupied attic to her extended family as they rebuild their lives among the rubble. The absence of men—lost to war, death, or abandonment—leaves the burden of survival to the women, who use the attic to incubate fragile futures: Camilla works to carry the family toward dignity and norma