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"Such is Giuffre's talent that by the end of the book, I came to feel I
had always known her. Under her microscope, the foibles of her family
seem more familiar and explicable than the often uncharted terrain of
our own. Time and again, I found myself pausing to consider some
apparently effortless apercu, and thinking, "How did you get so smart?" Miriam Cosic, The Australian. Read the review
"Primavera is an original. It is also a stunner. Who saw it coming? No commercial publisher did; it's self-published. It fits no genre specification, yet it includes many genres. It's a scrap book, a gallery of oral and pictorial juvenilia, a quiz show, a series of meditations on life, death, love and other great human issues such as dogs and cubby houses. It's a childhood memoir, an anatomy of family life, a glossary of vernacular Australian, Neapolitan and Sicilian." Gerard Windsor, The Sydney Morning Herald. Read the review |
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" Rarely do memoirs come along like this one...a sprawling, amusing, original and often profound compendium of a life lived with eyes wide open." Diana Simmonds, Sydney Alumni Magazine. Read the review
"This is a generous book in every sense – in size, time-frame, ideas, images, dramatis personae. Giulia Giuffrè’s ambition, conceived some 20 years ago, was to create ‘an encyclopaedia of everything in my life that was important to me, written ‘with head and heart’ (xvi). It is a memoir of childhood, interspersed with meditations and a comic version of that form characteristic of seventeenth-century literature, the ‘anatomy,’ or division into parts for the purpose of analysis ... It is a courageous as well as a literally fabulous achievement." Susan Sheridan, Transnational Literature. Read the review
"Primavera is a book of many parts ... I adored reading about summers in Pittwater and the chaotic family gatherings with mountains of delicious food cooked by myriads of Southern Italian relatives." Meredith Jaffe, The NSW Writers' Centre Newsbite Magazine. Read the review
"It is enthralling and will achieve that masterful (mistressful?) thing of opening up other people’s lives and memories to them." Rosamund Christie
"A beautiful trionfo di parole!" Nerida Newbigin
"Very evocative. I couldn’t stop reading it." Caroline Cotter
"A wonderful and powerful mix of reality, emotion and comment." Ian Fraser
"Delightful – an intelligent and beautifully written memoir/meditation on childhood." Annette Barlow"Ambitious, original…containing engaging storytelling, acute observations and wisdom." Julia Beaven
"Primavera makes you laugh as you reminisce about your own childhood and dream about the one you want your children to have and then - out of the blue and with no pomp or ceremony - provides great insight , wit and wisdom into living an interesting and passionate life." Naomi Seddon
Contact the Author Read more reviews >>
"This is a generous book in every sense – in size, time-frame, ideas, images, dramatis personae. Giulia Giuffrè’s ambition, conceived some 20 years ago, was to create ‘an encyclopaedia of everything in my life that was important to me, written ‘with head and heart’ (xvi). It is a memoir of childhood, interspersed with meditations and a comic version of that form characteristic of seventeenth-century literature, the ‘anatomy,’ or division into parts for the purpose of analysis ... It is a courageous as well as a literally fabulous achievement." Susan Sheridan, Transnational Literature. Read the review
"Primavera is a book of many parts ... I adored reading about summers in Pittwater and the chaotic family gatherings with mountains of delicious food cooked by myriads of Southern Italian relatives." Meredith Jaffe, The NSW Writers' Centre Newsbite Magazine. Read the review
"It is enthralling and will achieve that masterful (mistressful?) thing of opening up other people’s lives and memories to them." Rosamund Christie
"A beautiful trionfo di parole!" Nerida Newbigin
"Very evocative. I couldn’t stop reading it." Caroline Cotter
"A wonderful and powerful mix of reality, emotion and comment." Ian Fraser
"Delightful – an intelligent and beautifully written memoir/meditation on childhood." Annette Barlow"Ambitious, original…containing engaging storytelling, acute observations and wisdom." Julia Beaven
"Primavera makes you laugh as you reminisce about your own childhood and dream about the one you want your children to have and then - out of the blue and with no pomp or ceremony - provides great insight , wit and wisdom into living an interesting and passionate life." Naomi Seddon
Contact the Author Read more reviews >>
