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In the Land of the Midday Sun: An American Grandson's Search for his Southern Italian Roots
Paperback
Series: VIA Folios, Book 193
Publisher Price: $25.00
ISBN13: 9781599542508
Publisher: Bordighera Press
Published: Apr 21 2026
Pages: 282
Weight: 0.84
Height: 0.64 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
The Italy of the John M. Glionna's ancestors cannot be found in the museums of Florence, among treasures shaped by the exquisite touch of da Vinci and Michelangelo, but a world away, on the peninsula's infamous boot. Their hands gnarled from planting pomodori, aglio and melanzana, his forefathers were peasant-farmers from the agrarian south - that other Italy - dirt-poor and uneducated, a land with a history of witch's spells and pagan gods. For them, working the earth wasn't art, it was a fundamental duty.
In 2023, Glionna experienced a cultural awakening: he travelled to his grandfather's home village to explore the landscape where his roots run centuries-deep. As he meets distant relatives, he asks questions echoed by all Americans exploring their ancestral homeland: Who are these people? Who am I? As a veteran Los Angeles Times journalist in search of his long-repressed Italianitá, he travels far off the tourist map, where he examines his grandfather's motives for emigrating. Beyond poverty and disease, he learns, southerners of his era faced a historic discrimination from their own countrymen that also drove them abroad. The book examines his father's upbringing as a child of immigrants and focuses on a realization that the author, like his father and grandfather, is proudly, deeply Italian, southern Italian.
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