Giovanna Miceli-Jeffries

press release: Join us for an evening with local author Giovanna Miceli-Jeffries as she discusses her new book, Bitter Trades. In the 13 life stories of this memoir, the narrator tracks with fierce passion, honesty and inevitable humor her growth as a child and teenager in the inter-reliant poverty and scars of post-war Sicily. Amid the ageless beauty of the Mediterranean landscape, she brings into relief the patriarchal culture of submission, fear and abuse, as well as loyalty and devotion, as she explores her maturation as a woman through immigration, displacement, and education across cultural borders. Woven into the personal stories is the experience of the second wave of Italian immigration that peaked in the middle of the last century. For those who, like the narrator, were uprooted and had no choice or agency in their migratory displacement, it is ultimately a quest to trade longing and loss for tangible and intangible forms that weave unforeseen and intriguing patterns of a modest American Dream, in the midst of following an Italian Dream. Giovanna Miceli Jeffries was born in Ribera (AG), Sicily, where she grew up and finished high school. She is an Emerita from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and holds a Master and Ph.D. in Italian Language and Literature. For the past 25 years, she has been the director of the Italian program at the Italian Workmen’s Club of Madison. She is the author of several books, of numerous articles and book-chapters on contemporary Italian literature, culture and pedagogy. She is also co-translator of Keeping House. A Novel in Recipes (SUNY Press, 2005).