Head in the Clouds
Susanna Tamaro
Fifteen-year-old Ruben dreams of an ordinary life — until a fatal accident forces him to run, launching him into a wildly unpredictable journey across a surreal, ever-shifting world. Along the way he encounters unforgettable characters: a blind girl obsessed with cinema, a charming con artist promising America, a self-proclaimed baron ruling over a crumbling domestic kingdom, and an aviator who descends from the sky carrying the mystery of lost words.
As Ruben drifts from one adventure to the next, taking on strange jobs and impossible schemes in the hope of reaching his uncle in America, he discovers that beneath the chaos and absurdity of life lie its deepest questions about identity, belonging, and hope. Bursting with imagination, humor, poetry, and emotional depth, Head in the Clouds is a dazzling picaresque coming-of-age novel — a cult classic that defies age and genre, where dreams collapse, certainties vanish, and yet life always finds a way to rise again.
Head in the Clouds by Susanna Tamaro was first published in 1989 by Marsilio Editori. It was also a finalist for the Premio Calvino and Premio Rapallo Carige, and won the Premio Elsa Morante for a debut work.
That was not its original title. In its first version it was called La dormeuse électronique, and it was perhaps a hundred pages longer than the published edition. Of all my books, it is the most unusual, the hardest to classify. It is a hybrid book. It does not seem meant for children, nor does it seem meant for adults. It tells a great many foolish stories and, hidden among those foolishnesses, conceals the great questions of life.“
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