BELFAST — Left Bank Books, in downtown Belfast, invites the public to a free talk and book signing by writer and university professor Anna Monardo on Tuesday, July 9, at 6:30 p.m., at the bookshop. Her recently released memoir, After Italy: A Family Memoir of Arranged Marriage, tells the story of two marriages undone by a dowry and the fallout from that rift on three generations of a Southern Italian family.

In After Italy, Monardo charts her grandfathers’ immigration to Pittsburgh, her father’s wartime as a medical student in Naples, the family’s marriages — including her own — that were tainted by an Old World curse, and an unlikely path to international adoption. She writes: “To tell my family’s story, I could dig in anywhere—1915, 1950, 2024. I could begin in Italy, Pittsburgh, New York, or Nebraska. Begin with my parents, my grandparents, or me, and from every point of entry, our story is the same: three generations unhappy in love.”

Anna Monardo lives in Nebraska where she teaches in the Writer’s Workshop of the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Her first novel, The Courtyard of Dreams, was translated into German, Norwegian and Danish; nominated for a PEN/Hemingway Award; recommended for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and has been adapted as a classroom text at numerous universities and high schools.

Monardo is a recipient of a Nebraska Arts Council Fellowship for Creative Nonfiction; the Award for Distinguished Research and Creative Activity at the University of Nebraska at Omaha; and residency fellowships from the Djerassi Foundation, the Corporation of Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her stories, essays and poems have been published in The Sun, Fourth Genre, Indiana Review, Salon.com, Huffington Post and other magazines and journals.

Seating for this free event is limited and reservations are strongly recommended by calling the bookshop (2070-338-9009) or sending an email to: info@leftbankbookshop.com. Ample parking is available in front of the shop and in an adjacent public parking lot.