Pier Vittorio Tondelli: Separate Rooms

Sceptre, 2026, Paperback, 256 pages, 12.8 x 19.6 cm

With an introduction by André Aciman, bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name

Thomas, a young German musician, is dying. His older boyfriend, a renowned Italian writer named Leo, finds it impossible to watch the slow and inevitable demise of his lover; he condemns himself to moving cities every few weeks instead, in the hope of finding a semblance of peace.

Wanting to preserve the passion of their relationship, Leo had forced Thomas to live separately: in separate rooms, separate towns, with separate lives. But now, face to face with true solitude, Leo must finally reckon with regret and nostalgia and the impossible striving of memory to recreate life.