Francesca Giannone's The Letter Carrier (trans. from Italian by Elettra Pauletto) reveals a singular woman

It’s the rare woman in 1930s southern Italy who lives by her beliefs and refuses to downplay her intelligence, but Anna Allavena fits this description.

When Anna arrives with her husband, Carlo Greco, from up north to live in his picturesque hometown of Lizzanello with their young son, Roberto, the villagers find her directness off-putting. They call her “outlander,” which sticks over the decades.

Published by Crown (July 2025).  

Anna discusses literature with Carlo’s older brother, Antonio, who can’t help but notice her beauty—to his wife Agata’s dismay. Over the years, as the couples’ children grow up and Carlo opens a prosperous winery, Anna retains her self-possession, and when she takes the post as Lizzanello’s official letter carrier, tongues wag even more.

The admirable character of Anna remains at the center of Francesca Giannone’s saga, an Italian bestseller based on her great-grandmother’s life, and Elettra Pauletto’s English translation makes the words skip along with fluidity. Spanning through 1961, the story is full of characters you’ll feel you know well, plus their fiery affairs, destructive secrets, and love no less deep when it remains unacknowledged.

Carlo’s former paramour, Carmela the seamstress, snubs Anna, blaming her for her own unhappy married life. Anna and her niece Lorenza, Antonio’s daughter, form a close bond, and Antonio remains protective of brother Carlo even as he watches Anna from afar.

Anna is quite an interesting mix of the traditional and unconventional. She loves her husband and cooks scrumptious recipes while she makes connections through her work and befriends others in need—even helping a lonely, illiterate woman correspond with her secret lover, a priest.

In a smart move, Giannone jumps over the war years, though we see the growth of Mussolini’s fascism and the postwar recovery. The storytelling carries you easily, and the vineyard country of southern Italy makes for a lovely backdrop.

The Letter Carrier, an international bestseller, was published in the US by Crown in July.  The UK publisher is Headline Review. I reviewed it originally for the Historical Novel Society.