Toni Cade Bambara S One Sicilian Night

"Toni Cade Bambara's One Sicilian Night is a brief and elegant story that recalls the first meeting of writer Anthony Valerio and one of the leading African-American writers on the way to a PEN writers' conference in Sicily. Toni Cade Bambara and Valerio have more in common with each other than they do with other writers from around the U.S., and so forged a friendhsip that's supportive, interesting and charmingly romantic. Part travelogue, part love story, "One Sicilian Night" is a rewarding read full of Sicilian and African-American flavors"--Fred L. Gardaphe, SUNY Stony Brook.

The Screenplay of the celebrated JOHN Dante's Inferno, about an immigrant's rise to second-in-command int he Playboy Empire. he life of one of the Great Lovers of all time, John Dante lived the life of a bachelor's fantasy, going from his humble beginnings in a small Italian village to the Playboy Mansion, where he lived for 26 years with Hugh Hefner and 40 of the most beautiful women in the world. John Dante was a key figure in the first years of the Playboy empire, hiring Bunnies, training Bunny Mothers, and managing the Playboy jet. He befriended some of the most popular and important figures of our time, including Hugh Hefner, of whom John paints as a "fascinating, complex man," as well as Shel Silverstein, Lenny Bruce, Don Adams, James Caan and myriad other personalities and stars. A first hand, inside look. An important book from the life of the second-in-command.

ANITA GARIBALDI, a Biography is the first complete and accurate story of the remarkable life and revolutionary career of Anita Garibaldi. Illiterate and poor, the daughter of a herdsman in 19th century Brazil, Anita lifted herself from a life of obscurity to one that is the stuff of romance and adventure. When she and a young Italian exile by the name of Captain Giuseppe Garibaldi met in 1839, they ran off (she was married), joined the cause of founding a Brazilian republic and went on to lead the defense of Montevideo from an Argentine siege-just one episode among many in their idealistic, nationalistic crusade in a time of immense revolutionary upheaval. She fought side-by-side with Captain then General Garibaldi while giving birth to four of their children and organizing and recruiting men and women to the republic's cause. And it was Anita who taught Garibaldi the all-important guerrilla ways of the gauchos, which served him first in defending the Roman Republic of 1849 and then in ousting the peninsula of Italy of Austrian rule in 1860. Returning to Italy in 1848 to fight for a united republican Italy, as revolution swept throughout Europe, Anita and Garibaldi were tragically separated by her untimely death the following year. Garibaldi went on to ultimate fame as the father of modern Italy-while Anita's story drifted into the mists of legend. This work brings life to an amazing, important woman."Anthony Valerio's biography of Anita Garibaldi is exactly what she would have wanted--a story told with sensitivity and eloquence and one that positions her as the active agent of her own destiny."--Professor Philip V. CannistraroIn Valerio's hand, Anita Garibaldi emerges as the courageous but vulnerable woman from Brazil, whose singular and precious spirit was caught in the times. Anita Garibaldi is a romance discovered in history's embrace. Valerio creates the Brazilian ethos in its emerald presence as the brilliant nerve in Garibaldi's brave but short time. This biography has a texture like a Renoir film, broad and expansive, swimming along in voluble seas."--Afaa M. Weaver, poet, professor"Valerio's biography salutes the legend that Anita Garibaldi has elsewhere and may be too someday become."--South Eastern Latin Americanist"Anthony Valerio's genre-crossing biography provides unique insight into Anita Garibaldi's 'short, glorious life.' Valerio writes with a novelist's dedication to character and an historian's dedication to the past. An unusaul book for a revolutionary woman."-Janet R. Jacobson, Director Center for Research on Women. Barnard College"Nella piazza del 13 febbraio il suo nome è circolato poco. Prima di queste celebrazioni, era stata citata solo da Sergio Caputo. Per ritrovarla in libreria bisogna andare sugli scaffali per ragazzi, grazie all'italoamericano Anthony Valerio e il suo "Anita, la donna che insegnò a Garibaldi ad andare a cavallo" che per la prima volta danno un racconto preciso della leggenda, svincolandola dalla presenza opprimente di Giuseppe. Brasiliana, analfabeta, ardimentosa, gelosissima del suo uomo, morì a ventotto anni per un attacco di febbre malarica, incinta del quarto figlio, mentre con il marito sfuggiva alle truppe austriache. Le future donne dell'eroe italiano non raggiunsero mai la sua popolarità." Stefano Ciavatta"È merito di Anthony Valerio aver restituito ad Anita la sua personalità e la sua vita, unita ma non confusa con la biografia e il mito di Garibaldi" --EMILIO GENTILE

Conversations with the author of the acclaimed works Gorilla, My Love, The Salt Eaters, and Those Bones Are Not My Child

The life of one of the Great Lovers of all time, John Dante lived the life of a bachelor's fantasy, going from his humble beginnings in a small Italian village to the Playboy Mansion, where he lived for 26 years with Hugh Hefner and 40 of the most beautiful women in the world. John Dante was a key figure in the first years of the Playboy empire, hiring Bunnies, training Bunny Mothers, and managing the Playboy jet. He befriended some of the most popular and important figures of our time, including Hugh Hefner, whom John paints as a "fascinating, complex man," as well as Shel Silverstein, Lenny Bruce, Linda Lovelace, Don Adams, James Caan and myriad other personalities and stars. A first hand, inside look. An important book from the life of the second-in-command. "This is a highly original way of telling the story of John Dante, self-made namesake of the more famous Dante. Using the medieval poet's vision of Hell as a kind of running parallel narrative, Anthony Valerio weaves a fascinating tale of ambition, excess, friendship, and rocking good times back in the day of the Playboy Clubs, replete with Bunnies, orgies, and hedonistic fun. Valerio writes with verve and compassion about men and women who ran after their dreams and their pleasures with abandon, living as if youth, potency, and beauty would never end. They did, of course, and this gives a poignant quality to the book. This is also the life story of an Italian American who came up from very humble origins to the heights of Hugh Hefner's sexy Never Never Land. I didn't always like these players' choices, and the machismo of that world is sometimes hard to take. Women are prized for their long, smooth legs, their willingness to service the men, their decorative essence, all of which is not the most admirable way of viewing women. But those were the times and those were the values that dominated Hef's universe. John Dante did have his own moral code, unusual as it was, and he was above all a good and faithful friend. Valerio is so expert at making us feel the lives of others, even those very far from our own experiences, and his colloquial style is just right. It seems that he wrote this book out of friendship, and so it is ultimately a kind, compassionate book. I am looking forward to many more tales told by the master storyteller, Anthony Valerio " Rebecca West, professor, University of Chicago

This startling portrait of the great writer of children's books, songs and plays Shel Silverstein presents him in a rare humane light. What he was like as a man and a friend. What interested and inspired him. Some of the women in his life. The loving often hilarious relationship between Shel Silverstein & Anthony Valerio depicted in these pages entertains as much as informs. Take a ground-breaking walk beside them through Greenwich Village on a routine work day. Their stops, their conversations. Meet a Shel Silverstein Not (Only) for Kids. A university professor recently wrote: "Readers will be riveted by the portrait of the beloved children's author that emerges in these pages. Not exactly what they may have expected." Lending beauty and life to this charming memoir of an historical time and place are never before seen photos by the great graphic artist and photographer Dave Barry. About Anthony Valerio, Shel Silverstein wrote: "He knows his people. He knows his craft. He gets in, tells his story & gets out. It's what good writing should be." "Shel was one of my people. I was one of his people. This is our story."--A.V. About Anthony Valerio critics are saying: Best Sellers: "...He really knows his history and his subject very well. No less important is the fact thst he is a first-rate writer who can really tell a good story..."Los Angeles Times: "...Valerio writes with energy & a rich style and has an unusually good eye for detail....""Baltimore Sun: "...Anthony Valerio's fiction bears likeness to our best dreams, when the fantastical elements of the subconscious play themselves out in a vivid replica of reality..." Contributor NY Times Book Review & Vogue Magazine--"Anthony Valerio writes a prose like no one else's. It reminds me of nothing so much as Chaplan's walk: the funny dignity, the sly humility, the fastidious pathos." "Gripping, Literate, Naughty, Bawdy"

Like most of Valerio's narrative fiction, "The Little Sailor" combines personal and popular cultural histories, resolving the logic and emotion of its protagonist's episodic memory in a linear plot.