Serafina Crolla – författare

‘You will look after them for me, my poor orphan children.’ Domenica could not hold back the tears. ‘I will Mamma, I promise, do not worry about us. We will be alright.’Picinisco, Italy 1945: the war may be over, but for Domenica and her family the struggle for survival carries on. Dealing with the cruel legacy of the battle of Monte Cassino, a now parentless seventeen-year-old Domenica finds herself bound by a promise to care for her 5 younger siblings. Will she be able to provide for them as food grows scarce? Will she hold the family together? Will this promise cost Domenica her own future with the man she loves? A fictionalised account of real events, Domenica weaves a rural tale full of home truths in the idyllic Abruzzo Apennines. Through a single shepherding family and its strong-willed eldest daughter, Serafina Crolla exposes the human cost of war beyond the battlefield in a poignant depiction of love and grief, pain and union.

An ancient way of life. Living with nature and the seasons. Moving from high mountain to plain. The cleanest air and water, the purest food and wine.A little girl tells the story of her last year at home high up in the Apennines of Italy. The love of her family and neighbours. The conviviality and shared purpose of her tight knit community. The beloved grandmother she will leave behind as her parents head for the factory floors and restaurant kitchens of 1950’s Edinburgh.An immigrant’s tale but also a record of a simpler life. At one time negated and cast aside and now more than ever sought out and admired.The Wee Italian Girl is a document for many Scottish Italians who, apart from picturesque villages and majestic mountains wish to really know from whom and where they came.

Living in Picinisco, Italy a er World War II brought enough societal challenges, never mind having to find the means to feed 19 other mouths. It is up to Mamma Matilda to make the needed sacrifices to ensure her family’s survival.With another baby on the way and the older siblings looking towards their future, tension begins to seep through the cracks. Upholding tradition, during a time of Italian poverty, death and lack of opportunities, is fading further away in the children’s minds.But Mamma Matilda will do what she must to protect what she loves the most – her family.A fictional story inspired by a real gravestone inscription ‘An Exemplary Mother of Nineteen Children’, this book tells the story of struggling to support a large family, but the harsh realities one must face when it comes to deciding to follow your footsteps or continue down the path of tradition.What truly is the importance of family? Does one’s dreams come before or after it? How would Mamma Matilda cope with an empty nest? In the end, it is family that has driven her all these years.