The Full Circle of the Travelling Cuckoo
Category: Book
| Title | The Full Circle of the Travelling Cuckoo |
|---|---|
| Author | Renato Amato |
| Year | 1967 |
| Publisher | Whitcombe & Tombs |
| Language | English |
| Online resource | NO |
| Topic | stories by Renato Amato; with a memoir of author by Maurice Shadbolt. |
This collection of short stories reveals the author, Renato Amato, who was born in Italy, as a man torn between two worlds, struggling to win acceptance and security in New Zealand, yet haunted by memories of his homeland and ever drawn back to it. Amato (1928-1964) arrived in New Zealand in 1954 to escape the burden of Italy’s history and a traumatic wartime past. In an unpublished piece called The Wop in the Land of the Long White Cloud, he wrote of his disillusionment and his hope of a better life. At first xenophobic hostility in New Zealand, then in 1958 he married, settled in Wellington and he began studying for a BA at Victoria University.
By 1960, he was president of the university’s literary society and impressed fellow writers with his mastery of the language and stories of the literary world in Rome.
The book is available in the library of The University of Auckland. The book is also available at the Centro Studi Diomede, Archivio Immigrazione.
