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Fritz Agency
Christian Dittus |
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THE FIREFLIES OF AUTUMN
And Other Tales of San Ginese
Some of these tales are set in the olden days, some in more recent times. All of the tales are true. Most of them unfold in a hamlet of San Ginese called Villora. You may search for a map and images of this place and they will exist, but you will never find it. Just as migrants do not ever truly arrive at their destination, so those who remain behind disappear and become untraceable.
The Fireflies of Autumn takes us to the vineyards, olive groves and piazzas of San Ginese, a little-known village in Tuscany. There we meet Bucchione, who was followed by the Angel of Sadness; Lo Zena, his neighbour, with whom he feuded for thirty years; Liduina and Mariella, two starving imbeciles; Tommaso the Killer, who killed Folaino, who had stolen his money in California; Il Chioccino, a chaplain who is a rascal, a whoremonger and a layabout; the Dead Boy and many others.
San Ginese is a village in Tuscany where fatalism rules, God lingers in people's minds, and many dream of California, Argentina or Australia. Some leave only to return disillusioned, wishing they had never come back; some never leave and forever wish they had. The Fireflies of Autumn spins the curious stories of these people and this place over the course of the twentieth century.
These linked tales recall the fables of Italo Calvino, the intimacy and sometimes shocking candour of Elena Ferrante, and Colm Toibin's nuanced sense of migration's losses and gains. But ultimately Moreno Giovannoni is an original. In writing that appears simple, but which has great complexity and power, he offers literary style, cultural wisdom and complete immersion in a fully imagined Italian world. This is Tuscany as you have never seen it before.
Moreno Giovannoni was born in San Ginese but grew up in a house on a hill, on a tobacco farm at Buffalo River in north-east Victoria. He is a freelance translator of long standing. His essay 'The Percheron' was published in Southerly and selected for The Best Australian Essays in 2014. He was recipient of the prestigious Deborah Cass Prize in 2016. The Fireflies of Autumn is his first book.
The Fireflies of Autumn takes us to the vineyards, olive groves and piazzas of San Ginese, a little-known village in Tuscany. There we meet Bucchione, who was followed by the Angel of Sadness; Lo Zena, his neighbour, with whom he feuded for thirty years; Liduina and Mariella, two starving imbeciles; Tommaso the Killer, who killed Folaino, who had stolen his money in California; Il Chioccino, a chaplain who is a rascal, a whoremonger and a layabout; the Dead Boy and many others.
San Ginese is a village in Tuscany where fatalism rules, God lingers in people's minds, and many dream of California, Argentina or Australia. Some leave only to return disillusioned, wishing they had never come back; some never leave and forever wish they had. The Fireflies of Autumn spins the curious stories of these people and this place over the course of the twentieth century.
These linked tales recall the fables of Italo Calvino, the intimacy and sometimes shocking candour of Elena Ferrante, and Colm Toibin's nuanced sense of migration's losses and gains. But ultimately Moreno Giovannoni is an original. In writing that appears simple, but which has great complexity and power, he offers literary style, cultural wisdom and complete immersion in a fully imagined Italian world. This is Tuscany as you have never seen it before.
Moreno Giovannoni was born in San Ginese but grew up in a house on a hill, on a tobacco farm at Buffalo River in north-east Victoria. He is a freelance translator of long standing. His essay 'The Percheron' was published in Southerly and selected for The Best Australian Essays in 2014. He was recipient of the prestigious Deborah Cass Prize in 2016. The Fireflies of Autumn is his first book.
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Book
Published 2018-07-01 by Black Inc. |