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M cover art

M

By: Antonio Scurati, Anne Milano Appel - translator
Narrated by: Jonathan Oliver
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Summary

The phenomenal international best seller.

M is a startling look into the fascist mindset, a portrait of unrelenting determination and an impeccable work of historical fiction.  

Italy is exhausted. Tired of the political class. Tired of the inept moderates and the agonising machinations of a democracy that no longer seems to be working.

While the leaders of the country have sat idly in the safety of parliament, achieving nothing, one man on the outside has risen to the top.

He is a misfit par excellence, a protector of the demobilised, a lost drifter searching for the way. He speaks for the outcasts, the renegades and the ideologically pure. He is a former socialist leader ousted by his party, the director of a small opposition newspaper, a tireless political agitator.

Like an animal, he can smell that change is coming.

He is Benito Mussolini.

M tells the story of the rise of fascism from within the mind of its founder. Rich in historical detail, and interspersed with real documents and sources, this is a masterful work of historical fiction with urgent resonance for our times.

©2021 Antonio Scurati (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"An anti-fascist history lesson disguised as a novel." (New York Times)

"A masterful historical account, an extraordinary and stimulating book. A portrait of Benito Mussolini all the more accurate and powerful as it is factual and rigorous. An audacious, fluid, dazzling production. A brilliant story." (Le Figaro)

"An indisputable literary achievement. Scurati carefully examines history, with an experienced prose rich in literary allusions. Like Yourcenar, Gore Vidal, Sebald, Echenoz or Fences. Italo Calvino would have loved it." (El Paìs)

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Had to resort to the book.

The book itself is a very accurate and detailed narrative of the days that saw the rise of Mussolini to power. It is heartbreaking to see how history repeats itself and how we systematically ignore its admonishments. A good book to read in a time when leadership is confused with authoritarianism. The only downside in my opinion was the audio rendition of Italian words/names. They are systematically pronounces wrongly (e.g. intonation follows English rules not Italian, which is annoying to an Italian reader), the voice of Mussolini doesn't reflect the character making him sound like an Oxbridge snob rather than a pathetic version of Julius Caesar. I had to put it down half way through and go to the book, but I appreciate it is probably something that would annoy only someone with Italian as first language.

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The rise of Mussolini's fascists

The narrator and the book's author unpick for us through references from contemporary chronicles, speeches and diarists the mechanisms by which Mussolini rose to power. Full of insightful detail, it is a history lesson that all who are interested in politics need to heed. Although a lengthy work the narrator Jonathan Oliver keeps you engaged throughout. An major dissemination of the route to power in post WW1 Italy.

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