Author Night at Latter Library: Elisa Speranza

The Italian Prisoner

Set in 1943 New Orleans, "The Italian Prisoner" is an engrossing story of wartime love, family secrets, and a young woman’s struggle to chart her own course in life.

Author Elisa Speranza will discuss her novel, The Italian Prisoner. Book signing to follow. 

In 1943 New Orleans, Rose Marino lives with her Sicilian immigrant parents and helps in the family grocery store. Her older brother and sister both joined the Army, and Rose prays for their safety as World War II rages overseas. Her parents expect Rose to marry a local boy and start a family. But she secretly dreams of being more like her fiercely independent widowed godmother.

Behind her parents' back, Rose lands a job at the shipyard, where she feels free and important for the first time in her life. When the parish priest organizes a goodwill mission to visit Italian prisoners of war at a nearby military base, Rose and her vivacious best friend Marie join the group. There, Rose falls for Sal, a handsome and intelligent POW. When Rose gets a promotion at work, she must make an agonizing choice: follow a traditional path like Marie or keep working after the war and live on her own terms.

Elisa M. Speranza is the granddaughter of Irish and Italian immigrants, raised Catholic, and educated by nuns. Her first paid job was in the children’s room of her town’s public library, and she was a journalist early in her career before spending thirty-plus years in the water and critical infrastructure business. A Boston native, she’s lived in New Orleans since 2002. Her first novel, The Italian Prisoner, was a finalist in the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing competition. She serves on the board of the New Orleans Writers Workshop.

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