Found in Translation: A New Collection Celebrates Italian Queer Poet Dario Bellezza
Books

Found in Translation: A New Collection Celebrates Italian Queer Poet Dario Bellezza

The resurrection of Dario Bellezza has been more than half a century in the making.…

Between Curiosity and Imagination: In Conversation with Renée M. Sgroi
Interview

Between Curiosity and Imagination: In Conversation with Renée M. Sgroi

In a Tension of Leaves and Binding (Guernica 2024) is Renée M. Sgroi’s second collection…

Félix Rose’s The Battle of Saint-Léonard: A Problematic Portrayal of Montreal’s Italian Community
Cinema

Félix Rose’s The Battle of Saint-Léonard: A Problematic Portrayal of Montreal’s Italian Community

Félix Rose’s new documentary, La bataille de Saint-Léonard (The Battle of Saint-Léonard), chronicles the language and education protests of the late 1960s that made national headlines for many months. What began as a local dispute soon exploded into a wider political conflict that demanded the intervention of both the provincial…

The Nuptial Cloths
Excerpts

The Nuptial Cloths

Gramma Stella was 14½ when her mother told…

Green
Poetry

Green

I say I love being close to you with a…

Love and War in Genni Gunn’s The Cipher

Love and War in Genni Gunn’s The Cipher

With The Cipher (Signature Editions 2024, 239 p.), Genni Gunn has written a masterful work that captures the sacrifices of…

The Wine Cellar

The Wine Cellar

“All of it?” Saverio asked again. “All of it,” came the answer from the other end of the line. “I’m…

Sveva Caetani and Her Recapitulation Series

Sveva Caetani and Her Recapitulation Series

Among Canada’s numerous visual artists of Italian heritage, Sveva Caetani is probably the least known. Yet, her body of work…

Calabrese Nacatole: Byzantine Delights for the Holiday Season

Calabrese Nacatole: Byzantine Delights for the Holiday Season

As the festive season approaches, I think of my mom and her enigmatic smile, and how she diligently and lovingly…

LOOMING

LOOMING

“When we undertake the pilgrimage, it's not just to escape the tyranny at home but also to reach to the…

The Courtyard

The Courtyard

Clara and Cosimo finally reached Via Plebiscito number 80, the intersecting street name Via Daniele written in cobalt blue on…

To Market, To Market – the Mercato Experience in Italy

To Market, To Market – the Mercato Experience in Italy

The Mercato is an Italian tradition that goes back centuries. Once a week, travelling vendors come to town, set up…

Where Italy’s Most Famous Are Buried

Where Italy’s Most Famous Are Buried

Every year millions of tourists visit the city of Florence and flock to the Uffizi Gallery for its extraordinary collection…

Ottawa’s “Village”

Ottawa’s “Village”

Cars, trucks, and heavy transports bustle down the busy thoroughfare known as Preston Street. A vital link between the city…

At a Loss – The Science and Art of Being a Hairstylist

At a Loss – The Science and Art of Being a Hairstylist

Victor DiBenedetto has spent a lifetime discreetly making his customers look and feel their best. For nearly five decades, the…

But For Now We Stay Home

But For Now We Stay Home

For our mammas! Francesca LoDico’s radio special, "But For Now We Stay Home,” is about her mamma coping with the…

Patrizio Buanne: Neapolitan Crooner and Really Nice Guy

Patrizio Buanne: Neapolitan Crooner and Really Nice Guy

In a career spanning more than 25 years, Neapolitan pop-crooner and international multi-platinum recording artist Patrizio Buanne has won over…

Fascism, Anti-Semitism, and the Italian Novel in California

Fascism, Anti-Semitism, and the Italian Novel in California

As Italian Liberation Day approaches every April 25th, the editorial pages of Italy’s national newspapers reignite the national discourse over…

Letters of Introduction? Lear, Gissing and Douglas’s Travels to Calabria

Letters of Introduction? Lear, Gissing and Douglas’s Travels to Calabria

For centuries, letters of introduction were considered almost as essential as passports for travelling within what is now Italy. A…

Giuseppe Musolino: Brigand King of Calabria

Giuseppe Musolino: Brigand King of Calabria

“He was the Robin Hood of Italy,” my mother said when she first showed me the tattered old book in…

Between Curiosity and Imagination: In Conversation with Renée M. Sgroi

Between Curiosity and Imagination: In Conversation with Renée M. Sgroi

In a Tension of Leaves and Binding (Guernica 2024) is Renée M. Sgroi’s second collection of poetry. Her previous collection, life…

Living and Writing Between Two Worlds: In Conversation with Douglas Anthony Cooper

Living and Writing Between Two Worlds: In Conversation with Douglas Anthony Cooper

Douglas Anthony Cooper is not an author you will find anyone reading under a beach umbrella. His novels are structurally…

Making Waves: An Interview with Guy Rex Rodgers

Making Waves: An Interview with Guy Rex Rodgers

Guy Rex Rodgers is the founding executive director (2004-2021) of the English Language Arts Network, or ELAN; "a not-for-profit organization…

To Market, To Market – the Mercato Experience in Italy

To Market, To Market – the Mercato Experience in Italy

The Mercato is an Italian tradition that goes back centuries. Once a week, travelling vendors come to town, set up…

Dining With the Gods – A Travel Essay

Dining With the Gods – A Travel Essay

After almost half a century living in Toronto’s Little Italy, I make a return journey to the place where I…

More Precious than Diamonds

More Precious than Diamonds

Despite my frequent trips to Italy, I consciously decided never to learn the language. With blissful ignorance, I always preferred…

In Laura’s Uncovering John Calabro Weaves a Tale of Two Eras

In Laura’s Uncovering John Calabro Weaves a Tale of Two Eras

In Laura’s Uncovering (Ekstasis 2024), Toronto author John Calabro has crafted a historical romance set in two different eras, with…

Love and War in Genni Gunn’s The Cipher

Love and War in Genni Gunn’s The Cipher

With The Cipher (Signature Editions 2024, 239 p.), Genni Gunn has written a masterful work that captures the sacrifices of…

Delusions of Empire: A Review of Francesco Filippi’s But We Built Roads for Them

Delusions of Empire: A Review of Francesco Filippi’s But We Built Roads for Them

One of the ironies of the Italic-skippered “discoveries” of the Caribbean and the Americas, from the late 15th and to…

To Seize the World: A Review of Carmela Circelli’s Love and Rain

To Seize the World: A Review of Carmela Circelli’s Love and Rain

Carmela Circelli’s Love and Rain (Guernica, 2023) is a beautifully written novel often soaked in mood. I wanted to swallow…

LOOMING

LOOMING

“When we undertake the pilgrimage, it's not just to escape the tyranny at home but also to reach to the…

Casa

Casa

It’s 1964, Montreal. And a photograph shows me taking my first steps in my grandparents’ front garden. A year later,…

Stranger in a Strange Land … or How I learned to Love the Hyphen

Stranger in a Strange Land … or How I learned to Love the Hyphen

Culture is a system of values – economic values, aesthetic values, moral values etc – to want to preserve it…

Another Timeless Italian Tradition

Another Timeless Italian Tradition

It may have been a spoonful of sugar for the family, yet it always left a bitter taste on my…

Found in Translation: A New Collection Celebrates Italian Queer Poet Dario Bellezza

Found in Translation: A New Collection Celebrates Italian Queer Poet Dario Bellezza

The resurrection of Dario Bellezza has been more than half a century in the making. The Roman poet, novelist and…

Italy’s Colonial Past Amid the Lies, Racism, and Selective Amnesia

Italy’s Colonial Past Amid the Lies, Racism, and Selective Amnesia

Excerpts from But We Built Roads for Them: The Lies, Racism, and Amnesia that Bury Italy’s Colonial Past, from the…

Feeling God’s Presence: A Review of Mary Melfi’s Welcome to Hard Times

Feeling God’s Presence: A Review of Mary Melfi’s Welcome to Hard Times

Mary Melfi has written over a dozen books, including fiction, non-fiction, memoires and plays, and her books have been translated…

In Search of an Altered Identity in Bruna Martini’s Roots-Radici

In Search of an Altered Identity in Bruna Martini’s Roots-Radici

Roots, Radici. (BeccoGiallo, 2022) is Bruna Martini’s new installment in her graphic memoir series and examines the author’s own altered…

A Celebration of Italian-Canadian Voices

A Celebration of Italian-Canadian Voices

More than sixty writers of Italian heritage presented their work at the 19th Biennial Conference of the Association of Italian-Canadian…

Fallen Workers: How the Italian Community Found Its Voice Through Tragedy

Fallen Workers: How the Italian Community Found Its Voice Through Tragedy

International Day of Mourning takes place on April 28th to remember workers killed or injured in the workplace. At Toronto's…

Italian-Canadian Writers Gather in Torino for Biennial Conference

Italian-Canadian Writers Gather in Torino for Biennial Conference

The Association of Italian-Canadian Writers (AICW) held its biennial conference at the University of Torino, in Torino, Italy, from September…

2021 Accenti Contests – Winners Announced

2021 Accenti Contests – Winners Announced

  Montreal, May 16, 2021 – We are pleased to report the names of the winners of the 2021 Accenti…