Italian American Literature

There are numerous important books addressing Italian American history and culture.

Historic and contemporary fiction writers and poets dealing with Italian American themes abound but unfortunately many of them have gone unrecognized by mainstream publishers, literary scholars, and the general reading public. To find out more, check out:

• the Italian-American Writer's Association (IAWA) supports and promotes the living authors. IAWA lives by the motto "Write or be written." I dig that.
• the journal VIA publishes original fiction, poetry, reviews, and essays.
• Italian American poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who founded City Lights publishing house, Gregory Corso, Diane DiPrima, and Philip Lamantia were major players in the Beat Generation.

Bibliography

• Robert Viscusi, Buried Caesars And Other Secrets of Italian American Writing
• Fred Gardaphé, Italian Signs, American Streets: The Evolution of Italian American Narrative
• Edvige Giunta, Writing with an Accent:Contemporary Italian American Woemn Authors
• Helen Barolini, The Dream Book: An Anthology of Writings by Italian American Women
• Mary Jo Bona, Claiming a Tradition: Italian American Women Writers
• Louise DeSalvo and Edvige Giunta, eds., The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture
• Anthony Tamburri, Paolo Giordano, and Fred Gardaphé, eds. From the Margin: Writings in Italian Americana
• Bill Tonelli, ed., The Italian American Reader: A Collection of Outstanding Stories, Memoirs, Journalism, Essays, and Poetry
• Regina Barreca, Don't Tell Mama!: The Penguin Book of Italian American Writing
• Fred Gardaphé and James Periconi, eds., Bibliography of the Italian American Books

There are also several non-fiction books about Italian Americans that I have found insightful:

• One of my all time favorites is Bill Tonelli's now out-of-print The Amazing Story of the Tonelli Family in America, in which the South Philly native and senior editor for Esquire magazine travels across the U.S. meeting total strangers sharing his last name to muse on memory, identity, and community in America.
• Pasquale Verdicchio's Bound by Distance: Rethinking Nationalism Through the Italian Diaspora, a smart re-imagining of the relationship of Italy, "Italian culture," and the Italian diaspora.
• Robert Orsi's book The Madonna of 115th Street about the devotion of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in the lives of East Harlem's Italian immigrant women changed the way we look at the everyday experiences of Italian Americann lives. Orsi's seminal article "The Religious Boundaries of an In-between People" exploring how "swarty" Italian Americans became white in racist America has been reprinted in Gods of the City: Religion and the American Urban Landscape.
• It comes as a total surprise that Micaela Di Leonardo's important study The Varieties of Ethnic Experience, about the role class and gender play in identity creation among Italian Americans in California, is out of print.
• Donna Gabbaccia, Italy's Many Diasporas. Simply a must.
• Nick Tosches, Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams.
• Pelligrino D'Acierno, ed., The Italian American Hertiage: A Companion to Literature and Arts
• Frank Viviano's Blood Washes Blood: A True Story of Love, Murder, and Redemption Under the Sicilian Sun, a Sicilian-American search for his grandfather's 19th century murderer is a personal voyage that reads like a mystery novel and history book combined.
• Mary Cappello's Night Bloom: An Italian-American Life is a beautiful and haunting memoir.

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