Realising a dream - The Pearl of Penang in Italian

There are places that stay in your head long after you leave them. For me, Italy is one of those places.

I first visited Italy when, aged seventeen, I went all over Europe for the first time, on a one-month InterRail holiday with friends after A Levels. Somehow I lived for a month on less than £50. I fell head over heels in love with the country and that has never left me.

I was fortunate enough to live in Milan in the 1990s, working, learning the language, and getting to know the country better. Italian is a beautiful lyrical language but not without its challenges.

When I arrived, I had only a smattering of vocabulary, next to no grammar. I learnt the best way: through daily life, movies, holidays with Italians, and work interactions rather than textbooks.

Years later, when I was a published author, I harboured a secret dream: that one day I might see my work make the journey to Italy. Not as an English‑language import, but translated, printed, and on bookshop shelves where Italian readers could discover it.

It’s a dream I never rushed to realise. Over the years I built on my writing success by commissioning translations of my books into German and French, self‑publishing and marketing them myself. To my delight, they did really well.

But Italy felt different.

Perhaps because of my personal connection to the country, I wanted my books to arrive there in the traditional way — supported by a publisher and available in physical bookstores.

It was something I was willing to wait for. So I resisted the temptation to replicate the success I’d had in Germany and France. When I got a foreign rights agent, I told her Italy was my priority.

But then late last year, something amazing happened. My English language publisher, Storm, announced a joint venture with Giunti Editore — Italy’s second‑largest publisher and the country’s biggest bookstore chain, with over 280 bookshops across Italy.

A small number of Storm’s titles were selected to launch this new partnership in early 2026.

The company publishes leading international and Italian authors, including Lucinda Riley, Stephen King, and Umberto Eco, and manages Italian publishing for Disney.

I was thrilled to learn that The Pearl of Penang is to be one of them.

This April, the novel will be published in Italian and placed into bookstores across the country. The cover will be the same as the English edition  – and it’s gorgeous! but the words inside will be in Italian.

There is something uniquely gratifying about seeing your work in another language.

It will give me such a thrill to see my books in five languages on the shelves of my study – Serbian joining them later this year.

I’m particularly thrilled The Pearl of Penang is in all five languages as it’s a very special book for me.

I will have all my fingers and toes crossed that it’s a success in Italy and hence is the first of many.

For me, this publication is not just about reaching another new market. A story written in English, shaped by my travel and research across Asia, will soon sit on shelves in a country that shaped part of my life.

My next dream is for my Ceylon books to make it into Italian. The reason is that I first visited Sri Lanka when living in Italy and toured the beautiful island with Italians and an Italian-speaking guide. So my first exposure to that magical island was through an Italian prism. My main character in The Star of Ceylon is called Stella – the Italian word for star.

I’m enormously grateful to Storm and to Giunti for believing in The Pearl of Penang, and to the translation and editorial teams who will make it possible for Italian readers to discover it.

Most of all, I’m grateful to readers — wherever they are — who continue to travel with me through stories and across borders.

Sometimes the longest‑held dreams are the ones most worth waiting for.