“You died on a random day and, like on any other random day, I wasn’t there. Between us there were two thousand kilometers and all the things left unsaid.”
If you’re like me and a member of the Dead Dads Club, Emanuela Anechoum’s Tangerinn (translated from the Italian by Lucy Rand, translated copyright 2026 Europa Editions) will make your throat tight and your eyes burn. At the heart of this fantastic novel, is a young woman missing her dad.
The novel is told in second person, with Mina addressing “you,” her recently deceased father. She is living in London when her sister calls and tells her that their father has died. She returns to the Calabrian coast of Italy where her Moroccan-born father, Omar, and her free-spirited mom, Bertie, had raised them. Her sister presents a letter her father had written her requesting she stay and run his bar, the Tangerinn, with her sister. Mina isn’t able to finish the letter until much later.
The ghost of Mina’s father lives on every page as Mina struggles with loss, regrets, and her own identity. She was made in her dad’s likeness, and they were extremely close until she reached puberty. Her sister has the fairer skin and hair of their mother, and Mina always felt Bertie loved Alisha more whereas she felt her dad was her person. When a disconnect grew between her and Omar, Mina felt a bit unloved and abandoned, which prompted her “escape” to London. Once there, she kept her family, including Omar, at arm’s length.
The novel beautifully crafts Mina’s story with Omar’s, a history repeating itself in many ways – a father who paved a pathway to allow Mina to find her own way. It’s heavy with a sense of home and family, of being unmoored and lost, and finding one’s roots.
I loved every bit of it, and that translation is impeccable.
A Girl Named Tommi 