A scholar's memoir of growing up and the powerful forces that shaped her as a woman and a writer; "her story will inspire all women" ( Library Journal).In this honest and outspoken reflection on her childhood, Louise DeSalvo explores the many ways literature saved her, both emotionally and practically. Born to Italian immigrants during World War II, DeSalvo takes readers back to the emotional chaos of her 1950s girlhood in New Jersey, growing up with her a...

The "panoramic, descriptive, and solidly crafted" historical novel of immigration, womanhood, and the feminist ideals of self-reliance and self-confidence ( Publishers Weekly).This sweeping, multi-generational novel begins in southern Italy's Calabria region in the late 1800s, as Umbertina—the wife of a simple farmer—persuades her husband to emigrate to the United States to pursue its promise of hope and freedom for their three children.Through yea...

"A vast, thoroughly wonderful assortment of poetry, memoirs and stories . . . that defines today's female Italian-American experience" ( Publishers Weekly).Often stereotyped as nurturing others through food, Italian-American women have often struggled against this simplistic image to express the realities of their lives.In this unique collection, over 50 Italian-American female writers speak in voices that are loud, boisterous, sweet, savvy, and of...

Candid and intimate accounts of the factory-worker tragedy that shaped American labor rightsOn March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the eighth floor of the Asch Building in Greenwich Village, New York. The top three floors housed the Triangle Waist Company, a factory where approximately 500 workers, mostly young immigrant women and girls, labored to produce fashionable cotton blouses, known as “waists.”The fire killed 146 workers in a mere 15 minutes but pie...

For Italian immigrants and their descendants, needlework represents a marker of identity, a cultural touchstone as powerful as pasta and Neapolitan music. Out of the artifacts of their memory and imagination, Italian immigrants and their descendants used embroidering, sewing, knitting, and crocheting to help define who they were and who they have become. This book is an interdisciplinary collection of creative work by authors of Italian origin and academic essays. The creative works from t...

Celebrating one of the most important Italian American female authors of our time, Personal Effects offers a lucid view of Louise DeSalvo as a writer who has produced a vast and provocative body of memoir writing, a scholar who has enriched our understanding of Virginia Woolf, and a teacher who has transformed countless lives. More than an anthology, Personal Effects represents an author case study and an example for modern Italian American interdisciplinary scholarship.Personal Ef...

Frances Mayes, whose enchanting #1 New York Times bestseller Under the Tuscan Sun made the world fall in love with Tuscany, invites readers back for a delightful new season of friendship, festivity, and food, there and throughout Italy.Having spent her summers in Tuscany for the past several years, Frances Mayes relished the opportunity to experience the pleasures of primavera, an Italian spring. A sabbatical from teaching in San Francisco allowed...

As Ida Susser writes in reference to Belmonte's Broken Fountain, "good ethnographies have long lives." This classic of urban anthropology, one of the most acclaimed ethnographies of recent years, offers vivid, literary descriptions of Fontana del Re, an impoverished Neapolitan neighborhood. Belmonte documents the struggles of Neapolitans surrounded by crumbling buildings and economic insecurity. He details family dynamics as well as the working of Naples's informal economy, the da...

Originally published in a 1990 collection of the same name, and later in the anthology Red Plaid Shirt, “The Man of My Dreams” pulls us into a place where we too wonder what is real and what is dreamed, and how our dreams reflect love, loss, and everyday life.Red Plaid Shirt shines with Diane Schoemperlen’s fresh and often deadpan comedic voice, offering a compulsively readable mix of deeply felt emotion and finely wrought intellect. The collection was shortlisted...

First published in 1847, Wuthering Heights is set on the bleak Yorkshire moors, where the drama of Catherine and Heathcliff, Heathcliff's cruel revenge against Edgar and Isabella Linton, and the promise of redemption through the next generation, is enacted. This edition uses the authoritative Clarendon text, and in a new introduction Patsy Stoneman considers the bewildering variety of critical interpretations to which the novel has been subject, as well as offering some provocative new insigh...

From a dazzling, award-winning young poet, a collection that paints life as a celebration in the dark.At the center of Mayakovsky’s Revolver is the suicide of Matthew Dickman’s older brother. “Known for poems of universality of feeling, expressive lyricism of reflection, and heartrending allure” (Major Jackson), Dickman is a powerful poet whose new collection explores how to persevere in the wake of grief.*from “Mayakovsky’s Revolver”I keep...

Welcome to Italy. Nothing beats the right phrase. LEARN ITALIAN BY EASY PHRASES provides travelers the right words for getting around one of the world’s most visited countries. Turn the pages as Italian Sharri Whiting lists necessary phrases to guide you through your visit to Italy. Designed as a compact and comprehensive companion, LEARN ITALIAN BY EASY PHRASES is the only language book English speakers will need in order to navigate through Italian museums, rest...