How to be Italian: Maria Pasquale’s Love Letter to Italy

“Doesn’t everybody want to be Italian?”

This is the starting point — as well as the final words — of Maria Pasquale’s new book How to be Italian, published by Smith Street Books.

Maria is Australian-born from an all-Italian family; both her parents were born in Italy, and their families left for Australia when her father was a teenager and her mother a baby. While Australia is home, they are still connected to their origins.