Language of my Choosing by Anne Pia sampler
Where do I truly belong? This is the question Anne Pia continually asked of herself growing up in the Italian-Scots community of post-World War Two Edinburgh. This candid, vibrant memoir shares her struggle to bridge the gap between a traditional immigrant way of life and attaining her goal of becoming an independent-minded professional woman. Through her journey beyond the expectations of family, she discovers how much relationships with other people enhance, inhibit and ultimately define self. Yet – like her relationship with her own mother – her ‘belonging’ in her Italian and Scottish heritages remains to this day unresolved and complex.
Where do I truly belong? This is the question Anne Pia continually asked of herself growing up in the Italian-Scots community of post-World War Two Edinburgh.
This candid, vibrant memoir shares her struggle to bridge the gap between a traditional immigrant way of life and attaining her goal of becoming an independent-minded professional woman.
Through her journey beyond the expectations of family, she discovers how much relationships with other people enhance, inhibit and ultimately define self. Yet – like her relationship with her own mother – her ‘belonging’ in her Italian and Scottish heritages remains to this day unresolved and complex.
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language <strong>of</strong> <strong>my</strong> choosing<br />
anne pia lives in Edinburgh. Born in the city, as the grandchild <strong>of</strong><br />
Italian immigrants she was raised surrounded <strong>by</strong> the food, traditions<br />
and dialect <strong>of</strong> southern Italy. Education was the means <strong>by</strong><br />
which she achieved pr<strong>of</strong>essional success but its most fundamental<br />
impact was the opportunity it provided for her to live and study in<br />
France and Italy, where she was able to create new identities and<br />
freedoms for herself, away from the tight and traditional community<br />
<strong>of</strong> her birth. <strong>Language</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>my</strong> <strong>Choosing</strong> was shortlisted for the<br />
2017 Saltire First Book Award. With the assistance <strong>of</strong> funding from<br />
Publishing Scotland an Italian translation will be launched in Italy<br />
in autumn 2018. <strong>Anne</strong>’s debut poetry collection, Transitory, was<br />
published in spring 2018.<br />
Praise for <strong>Language</strong> <strong>of</strong> My <strong>Choosing</strong>:<br />
A soaring hymn to the beauty <strong>of</strong> il bel paese. Ronnie Convery, Honorary<br />
Italian Consul, Glasgow<br />
A thoroughly engaging insider account <strong>of</strong> the little-documented experience<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Italian émigré community in Scotland: their social and business<br />
networks, their love <strong>of</strong> food and family, their pride and aspirations and the<br />
tragedies <strong>of</strong> their history. There is much that is funny and heartwarming<br />
but the book also tracks the author’s flight from that community and from<br />
the claustrophobic and sexist atmosphere <strong>of</strong> her busy and broken family in<br />
the ’50s and ’60s. Through music, and through grandmother and mother,<br />
who are sometimes counter-examples and sometimes role models, she<br />
learns to speak the language <strong>of</strong> herself. Meg Bateman<br />
Although largely about how <strong>Anne</strong> <strong>Pia</strong> survived and moved on from her<br />
Italian upbringing to carve her own identity and path, the book makes me<br />
want to gather <strong>my</strong> family round <strong>my</strong> table for a big bowl <strong>of</strong> pasta and some<br />
raucous laughter. Ann Marie di Mambro<br />
Distinctive and strong. Dr Terri Colpi<br />
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