Paper Fish
![Paper_Fish_C.jpg](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/56d1c90b37013be34dbcc75c/1466534986736-M4HVODZ3CAJC5BTPQPKS/Paper_Fish_C.jpg)
Paper Fish
Tina De Rosa
"An extraordinary novel by the Zora Neale Hurston of Italian American Culture."
Paperback Edition
ISBN: 9781558614390
Publication Date: 05-01-2003
Preface by Tina De Rosa
Foreword by Sandra Mortola Gilbert
Afterword by Edvige Giunta
The characters of Paper Fish are not wiseguys or madonnas but real, struggling members of three generations of an Italian American family living on Chicago's West Side in the early 1950s, where everyone knows their neighbor's business. Narrated by young Carolina, the novel records both her coming of age and the family's stories from the "old" and "new" worlds.
"Paper Fish is a unique piece of work. Tina De Rosa renders experience from the inside, going deeper and deeper . . . as if the smells and sounds and taste of things had a life of their own." —Marilyn French, author of The Women's Room
"Out of childhood memories, family lore, and an intimate knowledge of Chicago's West Side Italian community, Paper Fish creates a world of radiant particularities—bent hands at domestic work; the feel of rough wool and old palms against a child's face; city noises, cooking smells, and kitchen sounds. This is a world that urban renewal and acculturation intended to sweep away; it is reclaimed in De Rosa's wonderfully focused, tactile prose." —Michael Anania, author of The Red Menace
"Gorgeous writing and a generosity of spirit—a gift of love." —Rona Jaffe, author of Class Reunion
"A novel of daring and intense imagery crafted out of the harsh rhythms of Italian immigrant life. De Rosa's lyricism is not a sweetly coated nostalgia. She holds this remembered world in a rough, respectful embrace." —Janet Zandy, author of Calling Home: Working-Class Women's Writings
"De Rosa paints memory pictures like haunting dreams of aching beauty. Her poetic prose evokes the ghosts of our own childhood, makes us face them, try to see, hear, smell, and touch them as sharply as she does." —Dorothy Bryant, author of Miss Giardino
"De Rosa's virtuoso performance makes Paper Fish comparable to Henry Roth's Call It Sleep. It is a major achievement by one of our foremost artists of Italian/American identity and modern culture." —Mary Jo Bona, editor of The Voices We Carry: Recent Italian/American Women Writers
Amanda De Lisio is an Assistant Professor of physical culture, policy and sustainable development in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science, Executive Member of CITY Institute, and Co-Director of the Critical Trafficking and Sex Work Studies Research Cluster at the Centre for Feminist Research at York University. Her research is broadly interested in health, informality, and urban development in mega-event host cities, as informed by women (cis and trans*) in popular economies in the Global South. Her work has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council in England, Mitacs Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and published in academic and popular presses in English and Portuguese.
Octavia Saenz (she/her) is an editor and cartoonist who creates visual narratives about queer Puerto Rican diaspora. Octavia grew up in Puerto Rico and has a BFA in creative writing and illustration from Ringling College, as well as a Lambda Literary Fellowship. She has worked as a graphic designer, children’s book editor, and independent zine maker. Her short story about a transgender woman redoing a date, “Overnight,” won the Gold Juror’s Prize in Creative Writing for Best of Ringling. She is based in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Thayane Brêtas received her PhD from the Global Urban Studies program at Rutgers University–Newark in New Jersey. She graduated from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) with a bachelor's degree in law and a master's degree in contemporary legal theories with an emphasis on society, human rights, and art. Her thesis investigated the working conditions of sex workers in some of the main spaces of sex commerce in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She worked at the UFRJ’s Human Rights Laboratory and on projects at the Prostitution Policy Watch in partnership with Coletivo Puta Davida and the Brazilian Network of Prostitutes. She is based in Westfield, New Jersey and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Monique Prada is the author of Putafeminista, published in 2018 in Brazil. She is a militant defender of sex worker rights, creating the blog Mundo Invisível (Invisible World) in 2012 and participating in popular debates. She also served as president for the Central Única de Trabalhadoras e Trabalhadores Sexuais (CUTS), member of the UN Women Civil Society Advisory Group, and advocated for Bill 4211/2012 by Federal Deputy Jean Wyllys, which sought to regulate the profession in Brazil. She lives in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Bruna Dantas Lobato is a Brazilian writer and literary translator. Her work has appeared in, among other spaces, the New Yorker, Guernica, A Public Space, The Common, Bookforum, Vogue, BOMB, the Kenyon Review, and the Brooklyn Rail. Her literary translations include Caio Fernando Abreu's seminal story collections Moldy Strawberries (Archipelago Books, longlisted for the 2023 PEN Translation Prize) and No Dragons in Paradise (Archipelago Books), Stênio Gardel’s novel The Words that Remain (New Vessel Press), Jeferson Tenório’s novel The Dark Side of Skin (Charco Press), and Giovana Madalosso's novel Tokyo Suite (Europa Editions). She regularly teaches at Catapult, serves on the board of directors of the American Literary Translators Association, and works as a freelance editor and translator. She is based in Grinnell, Iowa.
Sarah Fonseca is a self-taught writer from the Georgia foothills living in Brooklyn, New York. Fonseca has held writing fellowships with Film at Lincoln Center, Lambda Literary Foundation, and People for the American Way. In addition to publications in Museum of the Moving Image’s Reverse Shot, Kenyon Review, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, her work has been recognized for its literary merit by Black Warrior Review, Sundress Publications' Best of the Net, and the Association of LGBTQ Journalists.
Amara Moira is a writer, academic, and self-described “travesti putafeminista.” She is a columnist at Buzzfeed Brasil and UOL Esporte. Moira received her PhD in literature from Universidade Estadual de Campinas, wrote her dissertation on James Joyce, and became the first trans woman to graduate using her chosen name. She has given two TEDxBrazil talks: “Who’s Afraid of Trans Women?” and “The World of Trans Words.” She is the author of So (What If) I’m a Puta? and the poetry collection Neca + 20 Poemetos Travesso, and a co-contributor to the collection Vidas Trans: A Coragem de Existir (Trans Lives: The Courage to Exist). She lives in São Paulo, Brazil.
Betsy Golden Kellem is a scholar of the unusual. Her writing on circus and entertainment history has appeared in venues including The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Public Domain Review, Smithsonian, Atlas Obscura, and Slate. A board member of the Barnum Museum and the Circus Historical Society, Betsy is an Emmy winner for her Showman’s Shorts video series on P. T. Barnum. She is a columnist for JSTOR Daily and regularly teaches and speaks for academia and industry. If you ask nicely, she will juggle knives for you. She lives in North Haven, Connecticut.
Demree McGhee earned her BA from the University of California San Diego. Her work has been published in Lunch Ticket, Wax Nine Journal, Prose Online, and more. Sympathy for Wild Girls is her debut short story collection. She is currently an MFA student at San Diego State University. She lives in San Diego, CA.
Roisin Dunnett holds a degree in English literature from Clare College Cambridge and an MA in creative and life writing from Goldsmiths, where she was longlisted for the Pat Kavanagh Prize in 2022.