Not at Home - Tapa blanda

Not at Home spans one tumultuous year in the lives of four British women living in Tuscany. This is not a tale of cultivating olive orchards or transforming crumbling farmhouses into heavenly homes. Nor is it full of whimsical Italian characters and quaint Italian traditions or recipes. Instead, Not at Home presents a realistic take on the Tuscan idyll. Mixing both drama and comedy, the focus is firmly on the women’s search for an identity, the challenges of culturally-mixed relationships and contrasting perspectives, and their own individual concepts of belonging. It is also a story of friendship as the women's paths intertwine in their quest to create a sense of home.

Anna Southern was born in Rochdale (Lancashire). After working for many years in London, mainly with charities and projects for homeless people, in 1999 she moved to Pisa (Tuscany) where she lives with her English husband and thirteen year old son. She wrote Not at Home when her son started infant school, receiving regular feedback from the Writers’ Workshop. She hopes the novel will particularly appeal to anyone who has lived or is living abroad or has simply imagined what it might be like.