Anthony Valerio

ANITA GARIBALDI, a Biography Anthony Valerio

ANITA GARIBALDI, a Biography is the first complete and accurate story of the remarkable life and revolutionary career of Anita Garibaldi. Illiterate and poor, the daughter of a herdsman in 19th century Brazil, Anita lifted herself from a life of obscurity to one that is the stuff of romance and adventure. When she and a young Italian exile by the name of Captain Giuseppe Garibaldi met in 1839, they ran off (she was married), joined the cause of founding a Brazilian republic and went on to lead the defense of Montevideo from an Argentine siege-just one episode among many in their idealistic, nationalistic crusade in a time of immense revolutionary upheaval. She fought side-by-side with Captain then General Garibaldi while giving birth to four of their children and organizing and recruiting men and women to the republic's cause. And it was Anita who taught Garibaldi the all-important guerrilla ways of the gauchos, which served him first in defending the Roman Republic of 1849 and then in ousting the peninsula of Italy of Austrian rule in 1860. Returning to Italy in 1848 to fight for a united republican Italy, as revolution swept throughout Europe, Anita and Garibaldi were tragically separated by her untimely death the following year. Garibaldi went on to ultimate fame as the father of modern Italy-while Anita's story drifted into the mists of legend. This work brings life to an amazing, important woman."Anthony Valerio's biography of Anita Garibaldi is exactly what she would have wanted--a story told with sensitivity and eloquence and one that positions her as the active agent of her own destiny."--Professor Philip V. Cannistraro"In Valerio's hand, Anita Garibaldi emerges as the courageous but vulnerable woman from Brazil, whose singular and precious spirit was caught in the times. Anita Garibaldi is a romance discovered in history's embrace. Valerio creates the Brazilian ethos in its emerald presence as the brilliant nerve in Garibaldi's brave but short time. This biography has a texture like a Renoir film, broad and expansive, swimming along in voluble seas."--Afaa M. Weaver, poet, professor"Valerio's biography salutes the legend that Anita Garibaldi has elsewhere and may be too someday become."--South Eastern Latin Americanist"Anthony Valerio's genre-crossing biography provides unique insight into Anita Garibaldi's 'short, glorious life.' Valerio writes with a novelist's dedication to character and an historian's dedication to the past. An unusaul book for a revolutionary woman."-Janet R. Jacobson, Director Center for Research on Women. Barnard College"È merito di Anthony Valerio aver restituito ad Anita la sua personalità e la sua vita, unita ma non confusa con la biografia e il mito di Garibaldi" --EMILIO GENTILE