Meet the Author – Serafina Crolla

Discover the origins of Scotland's Italian immigrant population, through the stories of Serafina Crolla, a migrant who, like many inhabitants of the sleepy hilltop town of Picinisco, high up in the Apennines of southern Lazio, moved to Scotland for a better life. She now reminisces a simpler existence, amongst nature and local traditions.

Along with discussing her memoir The Wee Italian Girl’and her dramatic coming of age novel Domenica, she will also be giving us a sneak peak of her upcoming novel to be released in November.

The Wee Italian Girl chronicles Serafina's last year at home high up in the Apennines of Italy. The love of her family and neighbours. The conviviality and shared purpose of her tight knit community. The beloved grandmother she will leave behind as her parents head for the factory floors and restaurant kitchens of 1950’s Edinburgh. The Wee Italian Girl is a document for many Scottish Italians who, apart from picturesque villages and majestic mountains wish to really know from whom and where they came.

Based on real events, Domenica chronicles the story of seventeen-year-old Domenica, a girl coming of age in Monte Cassino, who finds herself bound by a promise to her mother on her death bed, to care for her five younger siblings after the battle of Monte Cassino.