The Immigrants: Fabula Mirabilis, or A Wonderful Story

by Moreno Giovannoni

A story of love, dreams, exile and tragedy, told with heartbreaking beauty
'Although if they are asked before they die, they all say they came here for a better life, they do not always find a better life, do they?'


In the Victorian town of Mitrefò, tobacco is grown, an Italian cinema and café open, and people travel back and forth from Italy. A boy fishes, wanders the countryside and watches a community form, with its joys, scandals and shared understandings. Interspersed are the 'grotesques' – indelible and terrible events that sit alongside the better future they all seek.


In The Immigrants, Moreno Giovannoni depicts a family as they build a new life in a strange land. Through love and exile, industry and tragedy, their unspoken dreams and fears unfold in this astonishing and moving book.


Praise for The Fireflies of Autumn:


'I can't remember ever reading anything quite like it. It thrilled me, and made me laugh, and moved me very deeply.' —Helen Garner


'There is immense beauty in this book, and there is great sadness and there is genuine tenderness. I can't recall when I was last thrilled by a book as I am by this one.' —Christos Tsiolkas


'I have never read a migrant tale so original, so breathtaking in scope, or so magical.' —Alice Pung

304 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2025

About the author

Moreno Giovannoni was born in San Ginese but grew up in a house on a hill, on a tobacco farm at Buffalo River in north-east Victoria. He is a freelance translator of long standing.

Reviews

[Kerran Olson · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5* I'm not totally sure how to review this one, because it had a very unique style and was very evocative, but also lacked a real emotional connection for me and felt simultaneously jumpy and disjointed, and also slow and meandering.

The book is written in a very fragmented style, like snapshots or memories of a life.

The tense changes a lot from "the boy", "you", " Ugo" etc. This change occurs between chapters and also within the same chapters which can be a bit hard to read. This adds to the fragmented style but I do wonder of this comes down to translation.

The Grotesques- the dot point style, photos, documents give a historical feel, like looking at historical documents. They are informative, but feel disconnected to the story and the actual people/characters. Because of this, as well as the regularity at which the narrative jumps between scenes and timelines and people, it was hard for me to really emotionally connect to a character and feel their growth.

The heat and dryness and loneliness of the Australian landscape is well done and a very evocative writing of place, and it further distances the characters.

Tpwards the end of the book the disjointed writing style seems to escalate- scenes and chapters appear out of order, like memories as they rise to the surface. The author says the book is not biographical but it feels like a collection of memories that aren't quite cohesive in a narrative way.

The writing itself is nostalgic and tender, there is a sadness and ache that these people left one place to find a better life, but as a result they seem to not fully belong anywhere and carry that with them.

Theres is a definite sense of regret, especially when the family returns to Italy and then back to Australia and seem to be between two worlds, always reaching for something more.

Overall I found this a meandering and nicely written book, but it felt a bit aimless at times and I didn't find myself reaching for it. The story feels very personal, and though I enjoyed getting these glimpses of the people it followed, I felt like an outsider, like I was just watching their lives play out without forming my own emotional connection.

[Marie Belcredi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A most beautiful, touching and haunting book full of memories. Memories of an earlier life before emigration to the opposite side of the world, memories of a childhood on a tobacco farm in the mountainous areas of northern Victoria, of a father, Ugo, who hopes that he can make a success of himself with hard work and extensive knowledge of growing tobacco.
Ugo never quite learns the language and the Italians are always outcasts. They work on farms owned by Australians until they can afford to buy their own small plot of land. Then they work hard against the vagaries of the climate. A drought or a storm can wipe out an entire year's crop.
Moreno describes the little Italian community with love and feeling but there always lurks some evil that can strike one or more of the community. Moreno calls these chapters Grotesques and bases them on real crimes that are committed against or within the community. These chapters show the reality in all it's terrible savageness.
Not since Romulus My Father have I read an ode to a father as touching and sad as this book. I myself am the daughter of immigrants who never quite fitted in to life in Australia. It's a life of yearning for home.
There is a quote from Dante who also comes from Florence, not far from where Ugo and his wife Morena and son Moreno come from.

You shall leave everything dear to you: this is the arrow that the bow of exile shoots first

[Allyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a challenging read for me. I feel like it’s in a weird spot of being autobiographical fiction. Clearly a lot of research has gone into this book and the format and style really reads like a memoir. I don’t think it has the emotional depth it could have, had the characters been fabricated rather than based on the author’s parents and his life. I wish he had chosen to go one way or the other rather than sitting on the fence like this.

I also now know way more than I would like about the growing, bundling and drying of tobacco. Pages and pages spent on detailing every part of the process that I wish had been spent on adding depth to the characters.
I did enjoy learning about the Italian immigrant experience in between and the struggle to build a “better life” for themselves. The addition of the grotesques at the beginning of each section was both fascinating and disturbing, especially knowing they were all drawn from real documents.

There are definitely people who will enjoy this, especially people more closely linked to their Italian heritage and history, but for me it was difficult to enjoy

[Laurena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well crafted book with a story that will evoke many memories in those who were brought up in families of Italian immigrants in Australia. The ‘grotesques’ bring some hardness to the story (as life generally does), however, the writing is sublime and gently meanders around family, fitting in, and expectations.

[Mark Cully · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful and warm evocation of time, place, culture

[Anni Kramer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moreno Giovannoni’s The Immigrants is a moving and intimate collection of stories drawn from his experience growing up as the son of Italian migrants. Although he insists it is “not really a memoir,” it reads like one: a patchwork of remembered moments, family tales, and the struggles of those who left their villages in search of a better life. The phrase seeped through the whole book, people in search "of a better life."

The book unfolds through vignettes—some tragic, some humorous—that capture the lives of people who tried to make Australia home. Some succeeded, others struggled, and many lived caught between two worlds. At the heart of the narrative are Giovannoni’s parents. His mother comes across as steady and pragmatic, while his father, Ugo, never quite found a sense of belonging in Australia. Ugo’s story, in particular, is both touching and heartbreaking, and will resonate with anyone familiar with the migrant experience. I myself as a child of immigration remember some of my parents' acquaintances, those who emigrated to Australia, but prayed for the day on which they would return to their native land, only to find a very different Europe since they left, and went back to Australia, where they ended up, feeling uprooted and foreign, not really happy anywhere.

At times, I found that certain stories lessened the emotional tension of the book, and a few passages that listed itemized facts pulled me out of the narrative. But overall, Giovannoni’s sensitive and often lyrical writing paints a dignified picture of the farmers, laborers, and families who carried with them the ache of nostalgia and the hope of a better life.

A book well worth reading—deeply human, evocative, and moving, and I'm happy to give it four stars.

[Johanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

would like to have given three stars
..but!

I really didn't enjoy the disjointed style of writing and very nearly decided not to read beyond the first third of the book.

But it did draw me in and I was both shocked and saddened at the traumas faced, the dreams shattered and the loss of connection with family and friends who were left.

The disjointed writing style actually reflects the lives of those immigrants who worked hard in their new country, without acceptance whilst losing their own way of lives, their families and their language.

[Brittany Dorrington · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very well-written book that has most definitely captured the life that immigrants go through when migrating to another country. Giovannoni also captured how important community, place and how home is where your people are. The one critique that I do have is that I did not like how it was a mixture of fiction but also memoir as well. This novel would have definitely worked better if it was either solely a piece of fiction or solely a memoir.

[Tiffany Plummer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful, haunting story of 'The Immigrants' search for a better life in a country that fails to live up to the promise for many. It is also a story of hope, regret and love, especially love.

[Laryssa Pereira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book❤️

[Jessica Zito · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5