"A deeply moving portrait of a woman the world calls incomplete — who instead chooses to live, love, and feel everything to the fullest. With lyrical grace and emotional acuity, Pavignano tells a story of intimate rebellion and quiet strength, destined to resonate with readers who seek truth in the everyday lives of extraordinary women. Reading the opening pages felt like slipping effortlessly into the heart of the story — something that hadn’t happened to me in years — and I knew, instantly, that this was the book I wanted to give to all my friends." Martina Donati - Fiction Editorial Director Piemme

Why this novel stands out:

A rare female voice with literary depth and cinematic vision:
Anna Pavignano was the screenwriter of all Massimo Troisi’s films — including Il Postino, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Her prose is vivid, lyrical, and emotionally powerful, deeply rooted in character and visual storytelling.

An unforgettable main character:
Camilla is a young disabled woman who refuses to be defined by pity. Her story speaks to anyone who has ever been underestimated — and still found the strength to reclaim their body, their place, and their love.

A lush historical setting:
Set between northern Italy and southern France in the late 1800s, the novel brings to life a world shaped by poverty, migration, and exclusion — themes that resonate powerfully with today’s conversations on identity and belonging. The novel also revisits the little-known 1893 massacre of Italian workers in Aigues-Mortes.

Comparable to: Elena Ferrante • Valérie Perrin • Isabel Allende • Sarah Winman

An unforgettable protagonist. A powerful love. A woman marked by loss, but never defined by it.

Between the mists of Alba and the blinding white of the French salt flats, unfolds the story of Camilla - a young woman who, though left “incomplete” - never stops dreaming herself whole.

In a stormy night at the end of the 19th century, little Camilla runs out of her house in search of her missing family. Struck by a late omnibus, she survives, but at a cost: to save her, doctors must amputate her leg. Her mother refuses – afraid that her daughter will be “only half a woman”. Her father, torn but resolute, chooses life.
Years later, Camilla lives with the burden of the wooden leg and the small town’s cruel nickname: the cripple. But she has learned to stand, to resist, to dream. At a local party where she is treated like furniture, she meets Felice, a young medical student from Turin with a keen mind and gentle soul, the first to truly see her. A fierce, tender love begins to grow between them, challenging the prejudices of their families and the society around them.
To protect their bond, Felice abandons his studies and finds work in the salt mines of Aigues-Mortes, France, where Italian immigrants are brutally exploited and targeted by xenophobic violence.

"Like Salt on the Skin" is a sweeping, emotional, and literary novel about a woman who turns her deepest wound into her greatest strength. Camilla is a heroine for anyone who has ever been considered "not enough" by the world, and still found the courage to claim her space, her love, and her dignity.

Anna Pavignano is an Italian screenwriter born in 1955 in Borgomanero. She is best known for her screenplay for the film Il Postino: The Postman (nominated Oscar - Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published Awards and BAFTA Awards - Best Screenplay - Adapted) and I'm Starting from Three (nominated David di Donatello Awards - Best Screenplay).