"La casa dei sette omicidi" by Matteo Dello Schiavo published in Canada

We are proud and glad to announce that the Italian manuscript, "La casa dei sette omicidi" by Matteo Dello Schiavo, published in Italy by Planet Book, has been translated into English and released in Canada by DC Books under the title "The House of Seven Murders" in April 2025!
The book has been translated by Mr. Alex Valente.

The project has been possible thanks to a grant from the Italian Government and to an additional grant from the Istituto Italiano di Cultura (Italian Cultural Institute) in Toronto. In particular, we thank the Institute Director, Ms Veronica Manson, and the Literary Events Manager and Director of Italian courses, Ms Happie Testa for the support and DC Books for the passion and the collaboration shown.

We hope this can be another good opportunity to spread Italian culture and literature in Canada.

Get your copy of the book in English from the DC Book's website or if you want to read it in Italian, you can order it here!

THE BOOK

Two murders bookend the pitiable life of cobbler, Oreste Solimeno. The latter he merely witnesses from his cell, but brazenly, flagrantly ideological, the first renders him wrongly accused, convicted, and imprisoned. Two Giuseppes, hatchet-bearing farmworkers, perpetrate it, the instigator “Calabrese,” motivated entirely by class hatred. “’Look at them stuffing themselves,’ Calabrese would say, gesturing to the De Nicola family gathered for lunch. ‘We toil from dawn to dusk for a pittance, and Rosario gets rich on our labour.’” They proceed to hatchet to death both women and children in the house of seven murders, then search for a non-existent 30,000 lira, the illusory blood money of communist ideology. The second murder is committed by black-shirted fascist prison guards, carried out against a young socialist agitator. Oreste Solimeno observes the beating administered by a lead pipe; the guards see him and report it, but the authorities decide to treat him as a long-term lunatic. Two sets of brutal murders in the 1920s symbolizing the ideological horror of that inter-war period, communism, fascism, with Italy itself, like Oreste Solimeno, caught inexorably in the middle, distrusted, smeared by accusations of mafia affiliations, a true WOP – person “without papers” – consigned, as many Italian Canadian immigrants would know and understand, to a perpetual internment camp.

THE AUTHOR

Matteo Dello Schiavo was born in Naples in 1968, but his family is from Capaccio (in the province of Salerno, in the Campania region of south-western Italy), where he lives. He pursued classical studies, has a degree in Economics, and is an inspector in the Guardia di Finanza (the Italian finance police). Married to Maria, he has two children of whom he is very proud.

If you are a publisher interested in "La casa dei sette omicidi", translation rights are still available to all countries (except to Canada). Do not hesitate to contact IBA at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.