Close-up

The inaugural Accenti Magazine International Festival of the Arts, held at the University of Calabria in June/July 2023, asked participants to answer a question: What does being Italian mean in the world today? For my short talk at the festival, I explained how these three things – customs, values and family – make for very nice prompts to generate flash…

Excerpts from But We Built Roads for Them: The Lies, Racism, and Amnesia that Bury Italy’s Colonial Past, from the English translation by Domenic Cusmano of Noi però gli abbiamo fatto le strade: le colonie italiane tra bugie, razzismi e amnesia *** Some Parts Went Missing In the 20th century, Italy experienced a series of major upheavals on the path…

Every year millions of tourists visit the city of Florence and flock to the Uffizi Gallery for its extraordinary collection of Italian Renaissance paintings. Or they visit the Duomo that dominates the city’s skyline. But nearby is the Basilica of Santa Croce, founded by Saint Francis of Assisi, considered by many as the most important church in Florence. The followers…

The floor is cold. We lie on gray cement, eroded by a decade or more of kids playing mini sticks hockey and one-on-one basketball. Faint remnants of hopscotch tape are fused to the concrete—lines in this unofficial archive. No one really takes much care of this space; it’s where the kids are sent to be kids. There are holes in…

In this interview / conversation, authors Liana Cusmano and Christopher DiRaddo speak about their writing, family and Italian heritage. The event was organized by Accenti Magazine, in collaboration with the Association of Italian-Canadian Writers (AICW), with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts via The Writers’ Union of Canada. The transcription has been edited for length and clarity.…