Winner - Campiello First Novel Award;
Finalist ��The Strega Prize for Fiction.
�
Camelia is a young Italian woman who lives with her mother in Leeds, a city where it is always December and winter has been underway for such a long time that nobody is old enough to have
seen what came before. She�� dropped out of university and translates instruction manuals for an Italian washing machine manufacturer; her mother, Livia Mega, once a renowned flautist, spends
her days inside taking photographs of holes she finds in the house. Camelia and her mother communicate in a language of their own invention, in which words play no part. The lives of these
two women have been undone by a calamity in their recent past, and there seems little or no possibility of ever finding their way back to a normal life. But one day Camelia meets Wen, a local
shop owner. To win Camelia�� affections, Wen begins teaching her Chinese ideograms. Through this new language of signs and subtle variations Camelia learns to see the world anew and, in it, a
chance for renewal. Stylistically innovative, linguistically thrilling, 70% Acrylic, 30% Wool announces the arrival of an exceptional new talent. A most unusual love story, one as
unpredictable as the human heart itself, 70% Acrylic, 30% Wool is funny at times, bittersweet at others. It will find admirers among readers of Karen Russell and Jennifer Egan.
