Toscanelli's Ray

Written by an accomplished American writer who has lived in Italy for several decades, this debut novel addresses issues of expatriation and immigration, prostitution and exploitation, from the Third World to the First, set within the microcosm of late-20th century Florence, that city which is both symbolically and literally the jewel of the Italian Renaissance. It is a novel where the common humanity of the characters is found in new and radically different circumstances, and where all transpires within the passage of a tiny sliver of time, 15 hours.

This is not the expatriate Florence of Henry James, Edith Wharton or William Dean Howells, rather it is that literary topos, tradition and city turned inside out, upside down, in this ground breaking novel where the sun and heavens are also part of the action, as is the underground.

Whereas Wallis Wilde-Menozzi, poet, essayist, novelist, is originally from Wisconsin, she lived several years in Palo Alto, California, and then moved to Parma, Italy, where she has resided and worked for almost three decades.

She is the author of many books of distinguished, award winning poetry, a work on living in Italy, Mother Tongue, Am American Life in Italy (North Point Press, 2003), favorably reviewed in The New Yorker and author of a forthcoming book on Italy, The Other Side of the Tiber (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2013).

A collection of her essays was published last year in Italy, L'oceano e dentro di noi (Moretti & Vitali, 2011). Wallis Wilde-Menozzi's poetry has been published in the Mississippi Review, Southwest Review, Notre Dame Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Granta, Kenyon Review, Agni, et cetera. Wallis Wilde-Menozzi is on the steering committee and is active in the programs of the Chateau Lavigny, Writer's Residence, at Lavigny, Switzerland.