Description

A stunning debut novel about the intertwined destinies of two friends brought together by childhood tragedy

A threemillioncopy Italian bestseller and winner of that countrys prestigious Premio Strega award

A prime number is inherently a solitary thing it can only be divided by itself or by one it never truly fits with another Alice and Mattia too move on their own axis alone with their personal tragedies As a child Alices overbearing father drove her first to a terrible skiing accident and then to anorexia When she meets Mattia she recognizes a kindred tortured spirit and Mattia reveals to Alice his terrible secret that as a boy he abandoned his mentallydisabled twin sister in a park to go to a party and when he returned she was nowhere to be found
These two irreversible episodes mark Alice and Mattias lives for ever and as they grow into adulthood their destinies seem intertwined they are divisible only by themselves and each other But the shadow of the lost twin haunts their relationship until a chance sighting by Alice of a woman who could be Mattias sister forces a lifetime of secret emotion to the surface

A meditation on loneliness and love The Solitude of Prime Numbers asks can we ever truly be whole when were in love with another And when Mattia is asked to choose between human love and his professional love of mathematics which will make him more complete