Anna (novel)

Anna is a 2015 post-apocalyptic fictional novel by Niccolò Ammaniti.

It follows thirteen-year-old Anna in a post-apocalyptic Sicily where a virus has wiped out all adults. She searches for her kidnapped brother Astor, facing peril and discovering her resilience. The novel explores survival and the impact of a world without adults.

Plot
In 2016, a mysterious disease called the "Red" spreads worldwide from Belgium, causing sterility and death, marked by red spots on the infected. It is incurable, and most of the population is quickly wiped out. Only children are immune until puberty, leaving them to survive alone in a desolate world. By sixteen, they too die as the disease manifests.

In 2020, thirteen-year-old Anna and her younger brother Astor live on a hidden farm in Sicily, devastated by the Red and fires. Anna cares for Astor, using a notebook from their mother for survival tips. She keeps him indoors with stories of monsters outside. One day, she encounters a wild dog, wounds it, but later helps it survive.

Returning home, Anna finds the farm destroyed and Astor kidnapped by a gang led by Angelica and the Bear, who recruit or kill other children for supplies. Anna sets out to find him, joined by the now-tame dog, named Coccolone, and a boy named Pietro, who believes a pair of Adidas shoes can cure the Red. They reach the gang's hideout, the Grand Hotel Terme Elise, where a supposed healer, Picciridduna, resides.

Anna finds Astor, but he refuses to leave, accusing her of lying. During a festival, Picciridduna, an unintelligent hermaphrodite, is sacrificed to supposedly cure the children, but it fails. Anna, Pietro, and Astor leave for Cefalù with Coccolone. On Anna's birthday, she gets her first period but hides it, fearing the Red's onset.

While traveling to the mainland, Pietro shows symptoms and, after a severe accident, asks Anna to end his suffering. Anna and Astor reach Messina and cross to the mainland, finding it as desolate as Sicily. They discover the Adidas shoes and each wear one, hoping they hold a cure.

Theme
Niccolò Ammaniti conceived the novel from a purely biological-behavioural perspective, pondering what children would do if left to their own devices. This idea led him to imagine a world where, for some reason, adults had disappeared. The concept raised numerous questions about the children's survival, which became a central theme of the story.

Adaptation
In 2021, Anna was adapted into a TV show of the same name aired on Sky Italia and directed by Ammanity himself.