Polenta and Goanna

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis book would not have been written at all without the help and advice of many people, to whom the author is eternally grateful. First of all I would like to thank all the Aboriginal people and families of the Goldfields, and Western Australia, who generously and openly shared with me their personal stories and those of their relations. It is through them that I was privileged to catch a glimpse of this fascinating chapter in Australian history and put together the basic factual elements on which Gino’s fictionalised story is based. I was enriched by long conversations with many Aboriginal people, including some of Italo-Aboriginal descent, but also with migrants to Australia from many different countries.

I am particularly indebted to my first sources of information, which made this book possible, Frank Trask, Keith Sceghi, Tom D’Orsogna and Giorgio Urbani. I also want to thank Angela Arcuri, whose enthusiasm was responsible for the original publication in Italian. Finally, I wish to remember Jonathan Lester, the film producer whose personal commitment to making a film inspired by this book was halted by his premature death.

In relation to this English edition, I would like to thank anthropologist Stephen Bennetts and Prof. Gaetano Rando from Wollongong University for writing the foreword. I am particularly grateful to Stephen, who first seriously encouraged me to have the book published in English, and who throughout the process has offered meaningful comments, constructive criticism and ways to fill gaps in my knowledge. I am also indebted to Koffi B. Kouakou for offering reflections and constructive criticism when we met in Pretoria, South Africa: they helped me to focus on the broader social and cultural issues involved, from a perspective unconnected to either Italy or Australia.

Lastly, a very special thank you to the translator, Barbara McGilvray, for her commitment, passion and patient work with me to find the most effective way to translate such a challenging inter-cultural text and, more recently, to make an in-depth revision of the original translation in the preparation of this new edition.

After publishing the Italian version of Polenta e Goanna I decided to make some small changes to the text. This means that for the most part Barbara’s work is a faithful translation of the original Italian version published by Pontecorboli, but there are a few differences.

To my children Ilaria and Luca

and my wife Monica