The Imaginary Life of a Laurel Tree

An Italian teacher’s relationship with his male student sparks legal and personal turmoil in this compelling novel of truth, desire, and power.


A group of old friends are unexpectedly reunited in Calabria for a dinner party. After a time, the conversation turns to reminiscing about their adolescence and recent allegations surrounding a former teacher, Professor Marco Ferro. Suggestions, gossip, and hints at a much darker past surprise and unsettle the narrator. Days later, still reeling from the news, he begins to grapple with a truth that is much more complicated than his nostalgic memories. His search rekindles an old relationship with his former high school friend—Federica, beautiful and spoiled, married to Lino, and the mother of two boys—which in turn unspools in complicated and unanticipated ways.

The action then moves to Tunisia, London, and Rome, in an incessant pursuit of who tells and who is told. In the end, it is the story of Professor Marco Ferro and his young student Yussef, played out in both courtrooms and newspaper columns, that restores truth to the complicated sentimental geometries of the narrator and Federica.

Grappling with secrets and entangled power dynamics, Mario Fortunato’s timely new novel raises questions that rarely have simple or unequivocal answers.