Black Inc. and CO.AS.IT. warmly invite you to the book launch of The Immigrants: Fabula Mirabilis, or A Wonderful Story by Moreno Giovannoni.
Opening remarks by Black Inc. publisher Chris Feik
Tuesday 1 July 2025, 6.30-8pm
CO.AS.IT., 199 Faraday Street, Carlton
Free event. Booking essential here:
https://www.coasit.com.au/Giovannoni-book-launch
The Immigrants is 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.
Moreno Giovannoni is the author of the critically acclaimed The Fireflies of Autumn and a freelance translator of long standing. His essay ‘The Percheron’ was published in Southerly and selected for The Best Australian Essays in 2014. He was the recipient of the prestigious Deborah Cass Prize in 2016.
Antoni Jach is a novelist, painter and playwright. His most recent novel is Travelling Companions, which was published by Transit Lounge. He is the author of three other novels — The Weekly Card Game, The Layers of the City and Napoleon’s Double; as well, he is the author of a book of poetry, An Erratic History. His plays include Waiting for Isabella and Miss Furr and Miss Skeene. He is also the creator of two limited-edition artist’s books: Still River in the Numinous World and Faded World: Fragments from the Description de l’Egypte.
Books will be available for sale on the night through Readings.
Image: Moreno Giovannoni, The immigrants. Book cover. Image courtesy Back Inc
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