Francesco Durante born in Anacapri, teaches the Culture and Literature of Italian Americans at the Università Suor Orsola Benincasa in Naples. As one of Italy's foremost journalists and literary critics, he has written for various Italian newspapers and journals. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including the groundbreaking Italoamericana. Storia e letteratura degli italiani negli Stati Uniti, 1776-1943, in two volumes (the second was published with the same title by Fordham University Press in 2014); Figli di due mondi. Fante, DiDonato & C: narratori italoamericani degli anni Trenta e Quaranta; Scuorno (vergogna); I napoletani; and, together with the late Rudolph J. Vecoli, Oh Capitano! La vita favolosa di Celso Cesare Moreno in quattro continenti. He has edited two volumes of Mondadori's prestigious Meridiani series on John Fante and Domenico Rea. In addition to various editions of mannerist and baroque poets and American writers, he has translated seven volumes of John Fante, two by Bret Easton Ellis, and other writers such as William Somerset Maugham, George Arnold, and William Dean Howells. Durante is the artistic director of the annual Salerno Literary Festival. His latest book is La letteratura italoamericana (2017).
Robert Viscusi, Ph.D., is Professor of English and executive officer of the Wolfe Institute for the Humanities at Brooklyn College, president of the Italian American Writers Association, novelist, critic, scholar of Italian-American literature and culture, and author of the epic poem "Ellis Island."

Collected classic writings on, about, and from the formative years of the Italian-American experience, featuring fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.
To appreciate the life of the Italian immigrant enclave from the great heart of the Italian migration to its settlement in America requires that one come to know how these immigrants saw their communities as colonies of the mother country. Edited with extraordinary skill, Italoamericana: The Literature of the Great Migration, 1880-1943 brings to an English-speaking audience a definitive collection of classic writings on, about, and from the formative years of the Italian-American experience.
Originally published in Italian, this landmark collection of translated writings establishes a rich, diverse, and mature sense of Italian-American life by allowing readers to see American society through the eyes of Italian-speaking immigrants. Filled with the voices from the first generation of Italian-American life, the book presents a unique treasury of long-inaccessible writing that embodies a literary canon for Italian-American culture-poetry, drama, journalism, political advocacy, history, memoir, biography, and story-the greater part of which has never before been translated.
Italoamericana introduces a new generation of readers to the "Black Hand" and the organized crime of the 1920s, the incredible "pulp" novels by Bernardino Ciambelli, Paolo Pallavicini, Italo Stanco, Corrado Altavilla, the exhilarating "macchiette" by Eduardo Migliaccio (Farfariello) and Tony Ferrazzano, the comedies by Giovanni De Rosalia, Riccardo Cordiferro's dramas and poems, the poetry of Fanny Vanzi-Mussini and Eduardo Migliaccio.
Edited by a leading journalist and scholar, Italoamericana presents an important but little-known, largely inaccessible Italian-language literary heritage that defined the Italian-American experience. Organized into five sections-"Annals of the Great Exodus," "Colonial Chronicles," "On Stage (and Off-Stage)," "Anarchists, Socialist, Fascists, Anti-Fascists," and "Apocalyptic Integrated / Integrated Apocalyptic Intellectuals" -the volume distinguishes a literary, cultural, and intellectual history that engages the reader in all sorts of archaeological and genealogical work.
"An addition to the great tradition of Italian-American literature and culture, this anthology of fiction, poetry, plays memoir and articles features the writing of Italians in America, writing from the "Little Italys" of the period, in their mother tongue, and fills a huge gap in the canon. A sophisticated, critical look at the writings of Italian immigrants to America across all genres, includes social and political commentary, a long labor of love for American editor Robert Viscusi... . A massive work of extraordinary power, that while scholarly and comprehensive, will have wide appeal." -Publishers Weekly