The Bitter Taste of Strangers' Bread

Fiction. Translated from the Italian by Martha King. "During a time of hunting down the [im]migrant, it is good to read a book like Elena Gianini Belotti's THE BITTER TASTE OF STRANGERS' BREAD. It reminds us who we were in the early twentieth century, when our own emigrants were forced to earn their bread with the most menial and burdensome of work in an America that killed Sacco and Vanzetti.... On the cover there is a photo from 1915 that portrays an immigrant dressed up against a paper backdrop...sitting in a car and holding on to the steering wheel while staring disoriented into the camera. And here's the lesson: we too suffered the same fate that is now inflicted on other humans who live in our world, hoping to live and feed themselves."—Renzo Cassigoli, L'Unitá