Author(s): Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli

General Biography / Memoir | Australian/Aotearoa

"I was born and raised in Adelaide, Australia; but the Maria that was to be, had already come into existence in the villages of the Campania region of Italy. Their names were as familiar to me as the name of my own street. I grew up as part of a tapestry, rich with the colours of many realities, woven with the threads of many places, spaces and times."

So begins Maria's exploration of the tapestry embroidered from five generations of women and men in her family, from the turn of the twentieth century to its final years, from the poor villages of Italy to the cities of Australia, and back to the nineties Italy that is both alien and home.

Meet the women and the men in Maria's family: from the great-grandmother branded the village witch to the grandmothers refusing to marry men they did not love; to Maria's parents plotting as teenagers in love to get away to freedom in Australia only to find new prejudices; to Maria facing expectations from both 'the Australians' and 'the Italians'; to her child Steph marching in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.