AUTHOR ANNA MONARDO: AFTER ITALY MEMOIR
ON BIG BLEND RADIO: Anna Monardo discusses her new and award-winning memoir, “After Italy: A Family Memoir of Arranged Marriage.” Watch here in the YouTube player or download the podcast on PodBean.
Peek behind the curtain of one woman’s journey across three generations of her Italian-American family in this complex story of arranged marriage, immigration, international adoption, and self-discovery in the award-winning memoir “After Italy: A Family Memoir of Arranged Marriage” (Bordighera Press, May 14, 2024) by Anna Monardo.
Author of “The Courtyard of Dreams” and “Falling in Love with Natassia,: Anna Monardo pivots from her career as an established fictional author to reveal the truths she discovered while investigating her family’s story. Starting in Southern Italy, 1948 leading to the U.S. and igniting a family feud so volatile it leads to separation, domestic violence, and an inescapable legacy of fractured love. At 39, caught in her own failing “marriage of convenience,” Anna looks to her family’s immigration history as she charts her personal path to self-discovery and the adoption of her son. Anna’s story speaks to those breaking the cycle of family trauma, the cultural conflicts among immigrant families, and the risks we take when going against family expectations.
Like her grandmother and mother, Anna marries quickly, knowing little about her groom. And like her maternal elders, she struggles in marriage. Determined to break the cycle of marital sadness, Anna sets out to investigate her family’s history, from their Calabrian Mountain village and WWII survival to their immigrant life in a Pittsburgh steel town, hoping to better understand the underlying forces that led to her own failure in marriage: Was it an Old World curse or a multi-generational trauma? What was gained and what was lost when the family’s Italian heritage intersected with American ideals? In time, she arrives at her own definition of domestic love by creating a path to the hopeful adoption of her son.
More at https://annamonardo.com/
