A charming, informative personal history that blends the anecdotal,
historical, and downright unusual
The child of Italian immigrants and an award-winning scholar of Italian
literature, Joseph Luzzi straddles these two perspectives in My Two
Italies to link his family's dramatic story to Italy's north-south
divide, its quest for a unifying language, and its passion for art,
food, and family.
From his Calabrian father's time as a military internee in Nazi
Germany--where he had a love affair with a local Bavarian woman--to his
adventures amid the Renaissance splendor of Florence, Luzzi creates a
deeply personal portrait of Italy that leaps past facile clichés about
Mafia madness and Tuscan sun therapy. He delves instead into why Italian
Americans have such a complicated relationship with the old country, and
how Italy produces some of the world's most astonishing art while
suffering from corruption, political fragmentation, and an enfeebled
civil society.
With topics ranging from the pervasive force of Dante's poetry to the
meteoric rise of Silvio Berlusconi, Luzzi presents the Italians in all
their glory and squalor, relating the problems that plague Italy today
to the country's ancient roots. He shares how his two Italies--the
earthy southern Italian world of his immigrant childhood and the refined
northern Italian realm of his professional life--join and clash in
unexpected ways that continue to enchant the many millions who are
either connected to Italy by ancestry or bound to it by love.
