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Italian novelist and winner of the Rapallo Carige prize for women writers Benedetta Cibrario talks about her third novel Lo Scurnuso, a story of a sculptor and his son set in 18th-century Naples.

The novel is about artists called pastorai famous for making pastori – little terracotta statues made for the nativity. The statues were highly sought after in their time. They signified wealth and cultivation. The story is also about World War II Naples and two collectors of the statues. Its final part is set in modern Sorrento where a statue features at the centre of the plot.

Cibrario is author of three novels. her first novel, Rossovermiglio,won the Premio Campiello, the most important prize for literature in Italy. Her second, Sotto cieli noncuranti (Beneath Careless Skies) won the Rapallo Carige prize for women writers.

Here she talks to Dr Elisabetta Tarantino, honorary research fellow at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages at the University of Oxford.

This event is part of the festival’s Italian day.