Luath Press Rights Catalogue 2024

14 Luath Press Limited Fiction
“
Children of this Land
SERAFINA CROLLA
9781804251089
November 2023
Paperback
198x129mm
192pp
£8.99
FBA Modern and
contemporary fiction
If you like
Elena
Ferrante,
you’ll love this
Poignant but life-affirming.
THE HERALD
“
The moving and delightful story of the Valente
family, although fiction, is grounded in firsthand
knowledge of the way of life in Picinisco,
southern Italy, in the post-war years. Poverty,
separation and loss were common experiences that
caused many to emigrate. Yet the hardships were more than balanced by a culture of family
warmth and vitality, shared connection to the land and an intimate understanding of how
to work it.
A born storyteller, Serafina Crolla was inspired to write Children of This Land when visiting the
cemetery in her native village of Picinisco. There, she saw a headstone for ‘An exemplary mother
of nineteen children’. She was deeply struck by the eloquent simplicity and poignancy of this
memorial inscription. As the daughter of a shepherd, Serafina well understood the joys and
hardships that life would have entailed for this family.
Serafina’s own family emigrated to Scotland when she was a little girl but she returns to her
homeland often, for, as she puts it: ‘A love for Picinisco as deep as the valleys and as pure as the
snow-capped mountains is never forgotten.’
“
You expose the human cost of war beyond the battlefield in a depiciton of
love and grief, pain and union... It has allowed me to see more clearly where I
come from.
RICHARD DEMARCO on Domenica
Serafina gives us an insight to a simpler time. It was a beautiful memoir and
told beautifully.
MARIA on The Wee Italian Girl