It's October 2006. In a few months Romania will join the European Union. Meanwhile, the northern Italian town of Turin has been rocked by a series of deadly crimes involving Albanians and Romanians. Is this the latest eruption of a clan feud dating back centuries, or is the trouble being incited by local organized crime syndicates who routinely "infect" neighborhoods and then "cleanse" them in order to earn big on property developments? Enzo Lagana, born in Turin to Southern Italian parents, is a journalist with a wry sense of humor who is determined to get to the bottom of this crime wave. But before he can do so, he has to settle a thorny issue concerning Gino, a small pig belonging to his Nigerian neighbor, Joseph. Who brought the pig to the neighborhood mosque? And for heaven's sake why?
This multiethnic mystery from the author of "Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio "pays homage to the cinematic tradition of the "commedia all'italiana" as it probes the challenges and joys of life in a newly multicultural society.

Clash of Civilisations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio tells the story of the immigrant tenants of a building in Rome, who offer skewed accounts of a murder. In this award-winning satire by the Algerian-born Italian author Amara Lakhous, each character takes his or her turn centre-stage, "giving evidence," recounting his or her story the dramas of emigration, the daily equivocations of immigration, the fears and misunderstandings of a life spent on society's margins, abused by mainstream culture's fears and indifference, preconceptions and insensitivity. What emerges is a touching story that is common to us all, whether we live in Rome, London or in Los Angeles. "The author's real subject is the heave and crush of modern, polyglot Rome, and he renders the jabs of everyday speech with such precision that the novel feels exclaimed rather than written." THE NEW YORKER

In 2005, the Italian secret service receives intel that a group of Muslim immigrants in Rome is planning a terrorist attack. Christian Mazzari, a young Sicilian, goes undercover to infiltrate the group. He soon meets Sofia, a young Egyptian immigrant who lives in the neighborhood with her husband Said, an architect who has reinvented himself in Italy as a pizza cook.