Apulian Days
Carnival time
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the 40-day period of prayer and penitence in preparation for the feast of Easter. As a child, I remember my mother coming back [...]
Olympic melodies moved me
With the Paralympic Winter Games in full swing and the Olympics just concluded, I should be writing about ski jumping, downhill racing, figure skating, and bobsleighing (bobsledding to North American [...]
What has become of the USA?
I live in a small village in the countryside of south Apulia, not far from the place where I was born seventy-five years ago. I have traveled widely in Italy [...]
After the summer upheaval
Summer is the season of scorching sunshine, of people flocking to seaside resorts, of sunbathing on golden beaches, of evenings under the moon, of pizza and ice cream in open-air [...]
Popes of my life, part 3
On the morning of February 11, 2013, the World Day of the Sick, I was sitting in front of my computer translating a news flash for a Roman agency when [...]
Popes of my life, part 2
The year 1978 was the year of three popes, two papal funerals, two Conclaves, and two papal elections. This all happened because the successor of Paul VI, Cardinal Albino Luciani, [...]
Popes of my life
I was eight years old when I learned that Pius XII, the first pope in my life, was ill. At school in the morning, and during Mass and evening services [...]
From Alezio with love
Emigrants convey their native culture to every far corner of the world where they move in their quest for jobs and better opportunities for themselves and their children. They carry [...]
Chance encounters
I came across The American | In Italia for the first time in 2019, while I was searching for something different on the Internet. I read a few interesting articles, [...]
A pair of red shoes
It was an August afternoon, almost twilight, in the mid-nineties, and I was sitting on a veranda overlooking the Adriatic Sea, on the Strait of Otranto. The house was situated [...]
South to Salento, part 2
In addition to the tour in the old town of Lecce, in her article “South to the Salento,” Patience Gray encourages the visitor to explore some of the villages and [...]
South to the Salento, part 1
Thirty-three years ago, the “Sophisticated Traveler,” the travel supplement of the New York Times, published an article by the eminent food writer Patience Gray about Salento, the southern tip of [...]
Author
Aldo Magagnino was born in Alezio (Apulia). After a career as a teacher of English he now works fulltime as a literary translator. He now lives in the Apulian town of Presicce, a few miles from Santa Maria di Leuca, land’s end of the Italian boot, with his wife Pina, two dogs, and a variable number of cats.