Between Two States
28 Aug 2025
Between Two States tells the story of anti-fascist Vincenzo Pacitti’s family as he flees Mussolini’s Italy, forcing his wife to decide which two children they will take to Glasgow, and which two will be left behind. With the family split between the mountains of Italy and the struggle to survive in Glasgow, siblings Gabriella and Antonio are forced to grow up estranged.
Raised in the ancient town of Cassino, Gabriella is embittered by her mother’s rejection and turns to fascism. In poverty-stricken Glasgow, Antonio feels an immigrant’s conflicted loyalties, which intensify when British Italians are interned in 1940.
War-stricken Italy is divided by two occupying armies, alternately ally and oppressor, a crisis of identity played out in individual lives.
What kind of country will a ‘liberated’ Italy be? Will the Scottish and Italian branches of the Pacitti family ever reunite?
Synopsis
Between Two States blends fiction with real life recollections and experiences, drawing on the dramatic family history of the writer’s late husband, the artist Antonio Pacitti.
I change the story and characters from their real life counterparts to intensify the tensions that arise when the birth country and adopted country are at war. My Italian-born protagonist is sent to his birthplace, Cassino, as a soldier in the British army.
This novel has been translated by Laura Ferri and published by Cosmo Iannone Editore, with presentations in the Molise, Firenze, Bologna, Torino and Siena.
