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Motherlands: In Search of Our Inherited Cities
A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR
'A remarkable literary debut . . . Part memoir, part travelogue, Motherlands is ultimately an investigation of how we come to understand the past at all' Guardian
Our creation stories begin with the notion of expulsion from our 'original' home. We spend our lives struggling to return to the place we fit in, the body we belong in, the people that understand us, the life we were meant for. But the places we remember are ever-changing, and ever since we left, they continue to alter themselves, betraying the deal made when leaving.
Australian writer Amaryllis Gacioppo has been raised on stories of original homes, on the Palermo of her mother, the Benghazi of her grandmother and the Turin of her great-grandmother. But what does belonging mean when you're not sure of where home is? Is the modern nation state defined by those who flourish there or by those who aren't welcome? Is visiting the land of one's ancestors a return, a chance to feel complete, or a fantasy?
Weaving memoir and cultural history through modern political history, examining notions of citizenship, statelessness, memory and identity and the very notion of home, Motherlands heralds the arrival of a major talent that opens one's eyes to new ways of seeing.
'A remarkable literary debut . . . Part memoir, part travelogue, Motherlands is ultimately an investigation of how we come to understand the past at all' Guardian
Our creation stories begin with the notion of expulsion from our 'original' home. We spend our lives struggling to return to the place we fit in, the body we belong in, the people that understand us, the life we were meant for. But the places we remember are ever-changing, and ever since we left, they continue to alter themselves, betraying the deal made when leaving.
Australian writer Amaryllis Gacioppo has been raised on stories of original homes, on the Palermo of her mother, the Benghazi of her grandmother and the Turin of her great-grandmother. But what does belonging mean when you're not sure of where home is? Is the modern nation state defined by those who flourish there or by those who aren't welcome? Is visiting the land of one's ancestors a return, a chance to feel complete, or a fantasy?
Weaving memoir and cultural history through modern political history, examining notions of citizenship, statelessness, memory and identity and the very notion of home, Motherlands heralds the arrival of a major talent that opens one's eyes to new ways of seeing.
342 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 4, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 12, 2022
There are so many things I loved about this book: it is a page-turner but also full of research and new facts and ideas and emotion; it is one of few books to go into depth about the legacy of Italian colonialism; it explains the idea of home and inheritance -- these ghost connections between people and places, especially after immigration -- that captures a very 21st century feeling that I haven't seen written about very much. It's the story of reckoning with the past as the child of immigrants, but also what the word "home" means -- where it is, when a place has been transformed or changed beyond recognition, when a person recognizes something in a place that they have no other connection to.
PLUS: maps, photos, objects, badass women.
PLUS: maps, photos, objects, badass women.
March 11, 2024
Lots of really interesting stuff about Italian history and its intersections with family history and memory. Not sure what it was exactly but the style somehow dragged and neither the history nor the family memory ever fully came alive for me.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews