Francesca had always dreamed of leaving by sea, to a far away island that she imagined as a quiet stretch of white sands and green palm trees under blue skies and a perennial sun. Paolo had offered her the chance to move to London. But Britain turned out to be different from their dreams, a cold and hostile island where they would struggle to survive. L'Isola che non c'era is an Italian novel denouncing the frenzied, black-and-white life of bankers in London, focused on ideals defined by others, and promoting a simpler, more colourful life on the Italian Riviera. It is a novel about the...