«In Rombo, Esther Kinsky has created a literary work of astonishing stylistic brilliance, thematic diversity and wilful originality. Far from unsympathetic and uncritical ecological reverie, Kinsky's novels and poems place humanity in relation to the ruins it has created and to what remains of nature.» Kleist Prize Jury, 2022

In Rombo, a word that designates the dark rumble that the earth makes when it trembles, nature and oral history intertwine to illuminate a vibrant account of the effects, both physical and psychological, of natural disasters. In May and September 1976, two earthquakes devastated northeastern Italy, causing serious damage to the landscape and its population: around a thousand people died under the rubble, tens of thousands were left out in the open, and many ended up abandoning their homes in Friuli forever.

«Half a lifetime or more has passed since then, but the handwriting with which it was inscribed in everyone's memory has not been erased»: Rombo is, indeed, an investigation into memory – «an animal that barks through many mouths» – woven together by the testimonies of seven inhabitants of a remote village between the Alps and the Adriatic, people who have to learn to live with loss and trauma.

«In Rombo language becomes the highest form of compassion and solidarity not only with us, human beings, but with the world in its entirety, the organic and the inorganic, which speaks through various living voices. A miracle of a book.» Maria Stepanova, author of In Memory of Memory

«Rombo is a moving novel that masterfully intertwines natural history and memory.» Thomas Hummitzsch, der Freitag

«In Rombo the earth speaks. With great skill, Kinsky brings to life the natural world that surrounds her. This novel offers a powerful antidote to trauma, to the inability to narrate pain, through language and the infinite possibilities of description.» Matthew Janney, The Financial Times