Polenta and Goanna

In a mysterious castle in Libya, the narrator stumbles on some unexpected vestiges of the past which inspire him to recount his extraordinary experiences in Australia. The result is the story of a meeting of two cultures Italian and Aboriginal and of the emotions aroused by his chance encounters with people and places that are the vivid, but fragile, proof of that meeting.
In the search for a distant reality, which resonates strongly with present day issues, magical storytelling is interwoven with sociological curiosity, historical reconstruction and notes on a journey. The reader is swept up in an engrossing narrative that explores fascinating truths about Italian migrants to Australia during the last Gold Rush, from the close of the 19th century across the first decades of the 20th.

Polenta and Goanna is a brave and unflinching portrayal of a controversial and highly sensitive topic. [...] The book reflects an honest and sincere attempt by an Italian writer to imaginatively explore the experience of intimacy and love between members of two radically different cultures. Stephen Bennetts, anthropologist

The engagement with the mystique of the Australian desert is a distinctive motif in Anglo-Australian literature and, in particular, constitutes a familiar archetype in the narrative produced by Aboriginal writers. To this nativistic Australian motif Emilio has added an Italian dimension and an Italian Australian myth, and has thus enlarged it beyond the geography of either Australia or Italy. Gaetano Rando, University of Wollongong

With two important introductory essays, this revised translation of Polenta and Goanna reminds us of the complex layers of language and culture present in human society. Gabbrielli treads delicately in this creative exploration of interlocking worlds that are both ancient and contemporary. Nerida Newbigin, University of Sydney

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