Party Animal

A surprising and spellbinding novel, its language razor-sharp and filled with little delights. San Pietro manages to capture, with graceful command, those very last days of youth – when everything feels charged with wonder and meaning, when life brims with poetry and adventure and a mysterious sense of freedom – VINCENZO LATRONICO, author of Perfection
A dazzling and charismatic whodunnit filled with villas, prosecco, psychedelic drugs, a gorgeous depressed heiress, an upstart artist, a fortune teller, rival friends, a beautiful garden, a giant killer bird, and the possibility of love. It has a stylized, cinematic fuzz to it. I loved it – RITA BULLWINKEL, author of Headshot
A reminder that a youth misspent is a youth well spent. I downed this fizzy, bittersweet spritz of a novel in a single gulp – ANDREW RIDKER, author of Hope
Finally, a proper novel about twenty-year-olds – full of rhythm and yes, naivety, of courage and fun … A story of pure energy * Rivista Studio *
Certain books are able to capture, with deep understanding and a light touch, the state of an entire generation … The writing in this novel is a language completely its own, fleet-footed … pure, crystalline * L’Espresso *
An electrifying debut, Party with Cassowary captures the feverish logic of youth – all its hunger and cruelty – with rare intelligence and style. Leonardo San Pietro writes with a sensual, searching intensity, each character’s voice bending to the pressure of the moment. Absolutely gripping – seductive, cerebral, and charged with real danger. I finished it stunned. – STEPHANIE DANLER, author of Sweetbitter
With a dark, offbeat brilliance that slips between the paradoxical and the philosophical, and a style that feels almost elusive, the author pushes readers to ask: what shape would the future take, if it suddenly stood right in front of us? For Leonardo San Pietro, the future looks like a cassowary. – Jury of the POP Opera Prima! Prize
So stylish, so fun, so ominous, so assured, Party Animal is a psychological page-turner and a sensuous social satire unlike anything else I’ve read in years, one that sinks its talons in deep – SARAH THANKAM MATTHEWS, author of All This Could Be Different

Leonardo San Pietro (Author)

Leonardo San Pietro was born in Turin in 1997. He studied at the Holden School of Creative Writing and worked as a reader at Giulio Einaudi Editore. He recently completed a master’s degree in linguistic sciences in Bologna, where he lives. Party Animal, his first novel, received Italy’s Premio Mondello in 2025 and is now being translated into thirteen languages.

Todd Portnowitz (Translator)

Todd Portnowitz’s translations from Italian include Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri (co-translated with the author), Long Live Latin by Nicola Gardini, and Go Tell It to the Emperor by Pierluigi Cappello, for which he received a Raiziss/de Palchi Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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