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THE PASSAGE OF THE FROG AND THE WILD STRAWBERRIES OF 1942 - order by emailing me $24.95 + 9.95 postage.
Early in the nineteenth century, Prince de Lampedusa, in his famous novel
The Leopard, wrote of social change in Southern Italy through the eyes of his family. The Passage of the Frog and the Wild Strawberries of 1942 has a different tale to tell, an insight into life at the other end of the spectrum.
Spanning several generations over the course of the twentieth century and set in the Italian post-Second World War scene The Passage of the Frog and the Wild Strawberries of 1942 maps the invisible passages and inner paths of the poor country peoples of the South (Campania, Basilicata regions).
It is a tale of superstition, religion, tradition and beliefs, poverty and fate and a way of life that, in southern Italy at the time, involved few people being able to read or write. The novel traces the socio-cultural geography of a socially and politically depressed and psychologically diseased Southern Italy, involving the readers in a poetic and thorough analysis of the country, travelling both in space and time and ploughing deep into the conscience and memory (both personal and historical) of the characters. Life and places on the borders between the Basilicata and the Campania regions, as well as in many other adjacent regions such as Puglia, Calabria, are little known even to Italians: off the tourist tracks, far from the artistic tides, always on the giving hand of history, never on the receiving one. In this geographical and cultural harshness, faith is mingled with magic, love with exploitation, hunger with everything. With a good blend of sad and funny items, an incredible gallery of portraits (both human and animals) are depicted here with a light-hearted style which is often torn by unforgiving strokes that make a portrait and a judgment all in a brief and powerful sentence. Among the many characters (essential to the story as very large families were the norm back then) you will find a family wracked by the augurs of poverty and superstition, but blessed by the providence of grace and innocent jocose imagination.
There is a patriarchal Count whose course hangs over the family, there are Basilicas of despairing Saints, potions of witches, wild foxes and hungry wolves, beatings, romances, marriages, festivities.
Against the backdrop of the Italian Appenines bitter cold winter nights and the Mediterranean summer sun burning down there are children who the author sees as white wheat forced to germinate in the dark, and all the strains of a provincial life that is fast disappearing. The end of the story is made more poignant by the fact that despite severing the umbilical cord that links the narrator (Bartolomeo) to his land and family, he still carries the unsealed wound of his childhood throughout his adult life as he casts his own light on an epoch that could so easily be buried and forgotten. The story is raw and often tersely told with a grain of humour that carries the reader over the highs and lows. The language the author uses to describe the details of landscape and religion, personal, family and historical events in
THE PASSAGE OF THE FROG AND THE WILD STRAWBERRIES OF 1942
echoes the rhythms of a Southern Italian dialectal mother tongue, thus adding to the originality and intercultural interest of the text.
The usage of the English language (The Author’s second Language) has the texture of tales told around the fireplaces or under the refreshing shade of an oak tree. The story puts together a series of autobiographical family and genealogical events, which can become an indestructible chain, where the son runs the risk of repeating the same mistakes of his grandfathers.
Author’s Bio: My name is Beniamino Petrosino. I was born in the province of
Salerno, in Italy in 1955. I trained as a chef at the State Polytechnic in Potenza and after qualifying, I emigrated to Switzerland where I lived and worked for four years. In 1976, I returned home to Southern Italy where I was soon conscripted by the Italian Army and sent to the Far North for twelve months. I later travelled to London where I met my future wife, a New Zealander, and in 1983 I moved to Christchurch, New Zealand where I have lived ever since. Together with my ex wife, I opened one of the first Italian cafés in Christchurch. I now live with my two children, an Old English Sheep Dog and a cat. I work as an Italian Language Tutor at the Christchurch Polytechnic.
