"Por nuestra cultura hablarán nuestros libros. Our books shall speak for our culture."
Italian Daze. By Marc Zimmerman. ISBN:978-1976242571. $24.95. 6" x 9" 282 pages
Ladino Hispanic Sephardic book, Sephardic literature book, Latino Sephardic literature book.
This book follows the Italian American and Italian strands of my shifting days, my overall daze—the hazy, but sometimes dazzling (at times amazing) maze of my wayward ways.” Marc Zimmerman The Italian Daze portrays the Italian American and Italian connections of a Jewish American in the course of his wandering life. The book opens with a catalog of Italian foods, cultural actors, heroes and villains, etc., culminating with a litany of Italian and Jewish Americans. Next come four parts reviewing early loves, travels with an Italian American wife, and subsequent encounters. Depicting key Italian locales, the book includes some of the most acute Italian paradoxes, including Fascism, the Holocaust, the mafia, possible afro-phobia, and recent turns in Italian politics. A final coda portrays additional Italian encounters, a series of public demonstrations, and our aging hero’s final dream of being lost and dazed in the maze that is Rome and Italy.
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