The Italian Prisoner by Elisa M. Speranza

Speranza was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, and is an alumna of Boston College and Harvard’s Kennedy School. A New Orleanian by choice since 2002, she lives with Jon Kardon there and in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts. She was a journalist early in her career and has worked in local government, on non-profit boards, and as a global business executive and corporate director. Select the department you want to search in. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. Her first paid job was in the children’s room of her town’s public library. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for The Italian Prisoner at. Then came World War II and everything changed. Speranza has been a writer and book nerd all her life. praise for the italian prisoner In the Sicilian neighborhood of the French Quarter, life had a predictable rhythm. The granddaughter of Irish and Italian immigrants, Ms. She is a co-founder of the Washashores Writers Collective. She serves on the board of the New Orleans Writers Workshop and has been a featured author at the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival, the Louisiana Book Festival, and the Islanders Write conference on Martha’s Vineyard. Her 2022 debut novel, The Italian Prisoner, was a finalist in the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. Speranza is a fiction writer based in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Inspired by little-known historical events and set to a swing-era soundtrack, The Italian Prisoner is an engrossing story of wartime love, family secrets, and a young woman’s struggle to chart her own course at an inflection point in American history.Elisa M. When Rose gets a promotion at work, she must make an agonizing choice: follow a traditional path like Marie or keep working after the war and live on her own terms.

Italy has switched sides in the war, so the POWs are allowed out to socialize, giving Rose and Sal a chance to grow closer. There, Rose falls for Sal, a handsome and intelligent POW. When the parish priest organizes a goodwill mission to visit Italian prisoners of war at a nearby military base, Rose and her vivacious best friend, Marie, join the group.

Behind her parents’ back, Rose lands a job at the shipyard, where she feels free and important for the first time in her life. But she secretly dreams of being more like her fiercely independent widowed godmother. Her parents expect Rose to marry a local boy and start a family.

Her older brother and sister both joined the Army, and Rose prays for their safety as World War II rages overseas. Rose Marino lives with her Sicilian immigrant parents and helps in the family grocery store.

The Italian Prisoner by Elisa M. Speranza