In this award-winning novel from Italy, a family is forced to flee their home on the brink of the Bosnian War, leaving behind all that they know and forging ahead into a life they never asked for.

Aida is just six years old when her family escapes the war bearing down on their village in Bosnia. But survival comes at a price. The home they make in Italy is safe, though not their own. Aida watches, helpless, as her parents grapple with a guilt and nostalgia she doesn’t understand. They yearn for a place that no longer exists, a place she barely remembers yet comes to resent for its lingering ghost.

Not even the arrival of her baby brother seems to spark their hope for the future, but Aida refuses to drown in the past with her parents. As the family sinks deeper into grief and the scars of mental illness, Aida makes her own way forward, through adolescence and into adulthood, constantly searching for where she belongs.

Aida and her family face their struggles quietly and alone, until tragedy forces them to come together once again. But amid the greatest heartbreak, hope always rises…even when it feels like there’s nothing left.

Alessandra Carati is a journalist and writer living in Milan. The original Italian edition of this novel, E poi saremo salvi, won the Viareggio-Rèpaci Prize for debut authors in 2021 and was short-listed for the Strega, Italy’s most prestigious prize for literary fiction in 2022. Carati also wrote Bestie da vittoria with Danilo Di Luca and La via perfetta with Daniele Nardi. Her latest novel, Rosy, was published in 2024. Once We Are Safe is the author’s first translation into English.

Linda Worrell and Laura Masini met during a workshop at the British Centre for Literary Translation in 2019 and have worked together ever since. Their translations have appeared in The Common, The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, and Visible: Art as Policies for Care. Socially Engaged Art (2010–Ongoing).

Linda lives in the UK. Her translation of a short story by Giuseppe Pontiggia was published in The Southern Review.

Laura splits her time between Tuscany and Cambridge. She translated Matthew Lipman’s novel Mark for Liguori and has contributed her short stories to various Italian anthologies.