…”Dear Teacher” is based loosely on real-life events — events that happened to the author’s grandfather’s cousin and a student.
…We learn upfront (not a spoiler), a student, Giovanna has died.
…”Dear Teacher” …. from last years title “Untold Lessons” (translated by Jill Foulston), was nominated for Italy’s prestigious literary prize. the *Premio Strega*.

Giovanna was a student in year six. Her family had moved to Biella, Italy, a few years before.
[note: I’ve not been to Biella and enjoyed reading more about the city in northern Italy from our friend Google].
With low school marks - her father left marks on Giovanna — bruises that lasted for weeks.
Her mother began to turn on Giovanna too. She thought her daughter was too precocious. By age eleven her breasts were larger than most girls her age. Her mother didn’t like that either— thought they were bad luck.
Giovanna couldn’t stand people talking about her body.
Who could?

Giovanna was skipping school pretty regularly. Her teacher, Sylvia was concerned about the consequences (parental abuse) she would cause Giovanna by calling her mother.
But Sylvia did call. She tried to play the ‘skipping-school’ down by saying she was just worried about her.
Ha— well that didn’t work out too smoothly.
Giovanna’s Mother tossed around nasty words at her daughter then threatened to tell her father.
Giovanna says,
“If you tell him, I’ll kill myself”.
“Her mother shook her head. She didn’t believe it for an instant”.

Giovanna’s body was found three kilometers downstream from the river.

Given this is such a slim novel, I’m being careful not to say much more.
We learn about Giovanna’s teacher who felt such horrible guilt -
Family life is examined.
Other students and characters in this small Italian village are also affected.
Themes of abuse, pain, bullying, grief, guilt, loss, suicide, compassion, family, tragedy and cruelty….
…love is explored, also.
But this is a sad haunting story.

The atmosphere is unnerving.
The writing has ‘feelings’ — earthy- honest- straight forward -its own body of language.
I thought the prose was beautiful.

Excerpts (non-spoilers) . . .

“Her stomach was twisting with hunger, the backs of her shoes had rubbed her heels, and even her face hurt because she hadn’t stopped clenching her teeth and jaw the entire time. She couldn’t go down to her village, nor could she turn around: the hazy memory of her house and the people she knew terrified her”.
“She wasn’t afraid of the woods, though. She’d grown up during a time when they were used like fields and pastures. She’s been going there with her cousin from the time she was a girl, at night too, to look for mushrooms. They’d gone out alone in the dark, pitch-black, climbing at the shortest, steepest road behind a clutch of houses clinging to the hill”.

“The city was sleeping under a creamy mist . . . “

This was a mournful-powerful-mesmerizing compassionately written novel.