Niccolò Ammaniti
Io Non Ho Paura

Summer 1978, Acqua Traverse, Apulian countryside. Six children are having a bicycle race, but Michele sees that his little sister falls and helps her, so he finishes last. He has to do the "penance" of climbing to the first floor of an abandoned house. As he tries to climb up, he falls onto a mattress, and beneath it he notices there is a hole, a hole that will change his life, a dark hole that hides a horrible secret. A hole that contains a boy.

Frightened by what he sees, Michele returns home immediately and decides to keep the secret to himself. He discovers that the few inhabitants of Acqua Traverse, including his parents, kidnapped him from Pavia, from his family. And Michele feels great pity for this almost crazy boy and forms a deep friendship with him. Deep as that hole. A friendship that will save only one of them. The other friends betray Michele, but with their reconciliation, at least the story has a half happy ending.

By publishing this novel in 2001, Niccolò Ammaniti intended to depict the concept of adventure from the perspective of a nine-year-old child (the fear of the Boogeyman, the Earth Giants), who are none other than his fellow villagers, and also his parents. The book itself is fairly well-written, at some points not very fluid (as in the ending), and in others it speeds up more. But the moral message comes through, precisely because it is narrated in the first person by Michele.