Umbertina
Umbertina
Helen Barolini
Acknowledged contemporary classic of Italian-American women's literature.
Paperback Edition
ISBN: 9781558612051
Publication Date: 01-01-1998
Available as an ebook on:
Kindle
Nook
Apple iBooks
Kobo
The lives of three generations of women in an Italian American family. The first women is Umbertina who goes from being a goatherder in the hills of Calabria to the owner of a thriving business in Upstate New York. Her granddaughter, Marguerite, who moves back to Italy and is caught between culturals. Marguerite's daughter, Tina, finds resolution as a strong, independent, Italian-American woman.
"An important novel for these times . . . through a dazzling interplay of American and Italian characters in both countries, Helen Barolini delineates the major concerns of all thinking American ethnics." —The Philadelphia Inquirer
"An ambitious saga which spans the history and probes some of the tensions of the Italian American . . . panoramic, descriptive, and solidly crafted." —Publishers Weekly
"Readable, perceptive, and rich in detail." —Library Journal
"Umbertina should be read. . . . Barolini redeems from silence, from neglect, those brave women upon whose shoulders [Italian Americans] should be proud to stand." —Newsletter of the Italian-American Institute
"I read Umbertina nonstop on the afternoon and all through the night of the day it came. . . . Large in scope, in depth, and in the gift of rapid narrative movement." —Cynthia Ozick, author of The Shawl
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.
Gabriela Jauregui is the author of the novel Feral, the poetry collections Many Fiestas, Leash Seeks Lost Bitch, and Controlled Decay, and the short story collection La memoria de las cosas.