Written by : Maria Concetta Cefalu’

From Sicily to New York and back, love, ambition, wealth and jealousies in a great family saga

In the Spazio Cultura Libreria Macaione via Marchese di Villabianca 102, Palermo, Friday 17 March 2023 at 17.00-19.00  there will be  the  presentation of Rosanna Catalano’s novel “Hearts of Sicily” The Catalano saga, Editor  Pienogiorno, published in July 2021. After the introductory greetings by Nicola Macaione, Marzia Snaiderbaur and Ida Pidone will discuss with the author. The readings will be edited by Rosa Randazzo. The author will be present. The event can also be followed online on the Spazio Cultura Libreria Macaione Facebook page.

From  Rosanna Catalano’s novel : “”Hearts of Sicily”. The Catalano saga
“There are fires that burn life with such passion that you cannot look at them without squinting. You cannot extinguish them like a candle: the wind feeds them. You cannot suffocate them or lock them up: obstacles feed them. great to play his part“.

Sicily at the beginning of the twentieth century gives nothing to those who have nothing. Not even love can be afforded, Rosario, because Rosa, the girl she loves, is destined for a good match, not for him. But Rosario has a fire inside that burns, and an insatiable desire for redemption. He has hunger, youth, an unshakable self-confidence. And the certainty that America is there for him to conquer. So it happens. New York isn’t paved with gold as shipping company agents led to believe, but from the moment he sets foot on Ellis Island in 1908, Rosario doesn’t miss a day. Soon, with Rosa at his side, and the children that their passion brings, his dream will no longer have limits. He turns his pastime, music, into a business. His quartet of Sicilian music first conquers Brooklyn, then America. Here come the contracts with the record companies, the records, the fame. The richness. The Catalano family conquers the place it deserves. Rosario is a skilled entrepreneur, unscrupulous in buying scores for a few dollars that make them thousands, and without fear in standing up to the Black Hand, the Italian-American mafia of extortion. But Sicily is not easily erased from the heart, and that’s where Rosario and Rosa return when amidst threats and friends who betray, they need their roots. And it is always from there that Rosa, courageous and proud as Sicilian women are, shaking the rules of society will take over the fate of the Catalans.

Rosanna Catalano
Rosanna Catalano was born in Mazara del Vallo (TP). She is married with two children. She graduated in Classical Literature at the University of Palermo and taught Italian and History at the ITIS of Mazara del Vallo subsequently, until 2019, Italian and Latin at the Liceo also in Mazara del Vallo. She took part as curator and creator in various school projects: Journey into the Dialect; Let’s re-read article 3; Let us re-read article 34 where you have had significant successes. In 2010 she published her first novel The Emigrant of Marsala-Ed Albatros which received numerous mentions.
In August 2020 you published The thread of emotions – Ed. Multiverse sylloge of Stories, Poems and Reflections in time of Coronavirus. Again on 7 July 2021 you published the novel Cuori di Sicilia with the Pienogiorno Publisher, of which over 12,000 copies have already been sold. Hearts of Sicily tells the story of her paternal family.