The Trieste Cycle (Paperback or Softback)

Trieste is a city built from many histories—and haunted by voices that refuse to disappear.

From the ancient settlement of Tergeste to the Habsburg port of Maria Theresa, from Maximilian’s dream at Miramare to James Joyce’s years of exile, The Trieste Cycle follows the women and men who preserve what empires, governments and scholars would prefer to forget.

A fisherman’s daughter rescues a stranger from the sea and gives a future city its name. A Roman surveyor discovers that the land remembers those who inhabited it before Rome. Translators, printers, archivists and historians encounter documents that challenge accepted versions of the past. Across the centuries, their stories converge around mysterious stones, hidden chambers, missing manuscripts and the fierce Bora wind that carries voices through Trieste’s streets.

At the center of the novel is a recurring struggle over memory: Who has the authority to record history? What happens to the lives excluded from official accounts? And can a city belong equally to all the languages, cultures and peoples that have shaped it?

Blending historical fiction, literary mystery and elements of magical realism, The Trieste Cycle creates a richly layered portrait of a border city where Italian, German, Slovenian, Croatian, Jewish and Austrian histories meet. It is a novel about exile and belonging, the instability of historical truth and the enduring human need to be remembered.