In her debut novel, Francine Masiello (Spanish & Portuguese and Comparative Literature) weaves a story of small-time artists and crooks who, over the course of a century, wend their way from southern Italy to the anarchist enclaves of Paterson, New Jersey, and from fascist Italy during World War II to Buenos Aires after its "dirty war" of the 1980s.
The multigenerational story is told by narrators Rosanna and Max, siblings who dig into family archives and dispute their revelations. But in The Tomb of the Divers (Bordighera, 2024), Masiello doesn't let us distinguish history from fiction, truth from lies; instead, writing with pleasure and wit, she reminds readers of that old Italian saying, "it's not true, but I believe it."
Masiello, the Sidney and Margaret Ancker Distinguished Professor in the Humanities emerita, is a Latin Americanist who has published numerous scholarly books on topics ranging from avant-garde movements to a representation of the senses across the Global South. Her books have received prizes from the Modern Language Association and the Latin American Studies Association, among others.
