Tales From the Italian South by Angelina Brasacchio - Translated by Julia Rivers -#BookReview

 

Once upon a time, when little girls had cotton wool in their heads and clothes with juretti and the boys wore hob-nailed boots so that the soles didn't wear out, and both wore black smocks, and carried black-covered exercise books and a cardboard folder, there was a girl in a quite ordinary family who was called Mena la Penicillina.

These eight stories by Angelina Brasacchio are set amid the rugged scenery and white sand beaches of the Italian South. But this is Italy, not as seen by tourists, but of the inhabitants deeply rooted in the soil of Calabria. We are drawn into their everyday lives and particularly their relationships with 'outsiders' whether gypsies, American soldiers blown in by the winds of war, or refugees fleeing their homelands because of persecution or poverty. 

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Tales of the Italian South is a slender volume of eight exquisite short stories, all of which are oozing with the atmosphere of its geographical landscape.

The stories are set against a backdrop which is simultaneously rugged and beautiful, and I found it intoxicating. I have been fortunate enough to have visited this part of Italy and so I could envision the places mentioned.

However, these stories are about the past, and the draw that they have on people to return. Many of these tales were about going back; about our need to return to the place where we began.

It was also about its influence on outsiders and the part that outsiders had to play on the region. From Romany gypsies to Syrian refugees, these stories illuminate the interconnectedness between all peoples.

For me, it was this that I particularly enjoyed about these stories. Some of the stories were generationally linked whereby, the reader can witness the happenings of a particular family.

It also explores what happens when an insider becomes an outsider and vice versa.

This is an excellent anthology of short stories, and I highly recommend reading them.

ISBN: 978 1916289550

Publisher: Aspall Prime

About the Author:

Angela Brasacchio is an established Italian author and has published six novels in Italy, including Tales from the Italian South. Some of her novels have been informed by her activities as a trade unionist and one of the earliest feminists in Southern Italy. Her book They Wanted to Change the World focussed on the 1968 protests in Europe and she demonstrated her non-conformist character by being the first

Calabrian woman to wear trousers in public. She participated in the student demonstrations of 1968 and was recognised at national level in trade union circles.