Leo’s Letter and Other Poems is a multilingual conversation that defies boundaries.

Michael Curtotti’s debut collection weaves together his original poetry with timeless voices from English, Italian and Arabic poetic traditions.

Walt Whitman, John Donne, Kahlil Gibran, May Ziadeh, Giacomo Leopardi, Laura Terracina and Isabella di Morra are among the poets whose work appears in these pages.

This work is an act of literary rebellion against tyranny of language, of culture, of borders.

Three major themes structure its poetic tapestry: history, home and hope.

History speaks to our collective journey, reckoning with a traumatic past and enduring scars of conflict and injustice. Home explores the universal search for belonging, love and identity in a fragmented world. Hope dares to imagine a future beyond dystopian nightmares; a future that is always possible, if we but reach for it.

Journey with these poets, as they take you into their intimate and visionary worlds.

Leo’s Letter and Other Poems is a multilingual conversation that defies boundaries.

Michael Curtotti’s debut collection weaves together his original poetry with timeless voices from English, Italian and Arabic poetic traditions.

Walt Whitman, John Donne, Kahlil Gibran, May Ziadeh, Giacomo Leopardi, Laura Terracina and Isabella di Morra are among the poets whose work appears in these pages.

This work is an act of literary rebellion against tyranny of language, of culture, of borders.

Three major themes structure its poetic tapestry: history, home and hope.

History speaks to our collective journey, reckoning with a traumatic past and enduring scars of conflict and injustice. Home explores the universal search for belonging, love and identity in a fragmented world. Hope dares to imagine a future beyond dystopian nightmares; a future that is always possible, if we but reach for it.

Journey with these poets, as they take you into their intimate and visionary worlds.

In Italy Unveiled - A Journey in Poetry, celebrated Australian poet Luke Whitington brings us his latest collection of poems - a tribute to Italy and twenty years of life he spent there.

Through his indelible longing, expressed in his extraordinary poetry, he takes us on a unique and intimate journey through Italy. His poetry is a bridge between cultures.

We discover an Italy full of life and love. Memories indelibly impressed in his being, echo in his poetry. He weaves the ordinary and the superlative of Italy, unveiling a beautiful tapestry.

A love, sometimes central, sometimes in the margins of a verse, appears again and again.

Luke’s poetry has been widely published, including in two volumes of poetry of over two hundred poems with Ginninderra Press. He has presented his poetry in Italy, Ireland, Australia and internationally.

This edition brings readers Luke Whitington's poetry in its original English in parallel language format with an authorised Italian translation by Michael Curtotti.

“What Light Can Do captures the intense overlap of places that can exist in one person, in the depths of one person who journeys from edge to centre and seeks to be in both places at once …”

Ivan Head, Quadrant Magazine

“Memory for Luke Whitington is his life’s existential continuum … His poems are haunted by pasts as they weave in and out of his contexts of fleshed-out figuration contrasted with classical stone statuary or a seagull from Ostia ghosting a dark, empty town square …” 

Bernard Hardy

“This is a poet who knows history and art, and feels intensely both youth’s freshness and the nostalgias of age, lamenting lost parents and lovers. His Italy is flavoured by Horace and Brodsky; his imagery is rich and deep … A poet of luxuriant talent …” 

Mark O’Connor, multi-award winning Australian poet

“… a life justified … by a poetic product of considerable, true quality and appeal … [a] constant, brilliant writer.”

Paolo Totaro, Italian-Australian poet

The play Othello is one of Shakespeare’s grimmest tragedies. Cinthio’s Desdemona, the story that inspired Othello, is almost horror.

Written in the Duchy of Ferrara decades before the Shakespeare play, the story Cinthio gives us is focussed on its only named character: Desdemona.

It is a story about a man obsessed with a woman he cannot have (Desdemona) and who, because of it, he wants to kill. Shakespeare’s play is about a man’s hatred of a man: Iago’s hatred of Othello. It is a profound difference between the story and the play.

This publication of Cinthio’s Desdemona, as well as giving us a fresh new English translation, is accompanied by an extensive introduction and afterword. These explore misogyny and attitudes towards race and gender in Renaissance Italy and Elizabethan England.

What were attitudes to domestic violence of this era, and what would Cinthio’s readers and Shakespeare’s audience have understood from the story? What might Cinthio and Shakespeare have wanted them to take away? Are the story and play racist, or do they only portray racism? Can we talk of racism, before the word was even invented? How have they influenced our ideas about relationships between men and women and race down the centuries?

These and other questions are explored.

Yet at its heart, this book presents Cinthio’s storytelling, storytelling so compelling that it inspired Shakespeare to pen one of literature’s most famous plays. It is a story which explores the worst in human nature and captures realities which are still with us today.

(Paperback and ebook).

Following Matteo Bandello’s, Romeo and Juliet, Cinthio’s Desdemona is the second book in the series Shakespeare Begins.

This work is also available in an English-Italian parallel language edition.

The play Othello is one of Shakespeare’s grimmest tragedies. Cinthio’s Desdemona, the story that inspired Othello, is almost horror.

Written in the Duchy of Ferrara decades before the Shakespeare play, the story Cinthio gives us is focussed on its only named character: Desdemona.

It is a story about a man obsessed with a woman he cannot have (Desdemona) and who, because of it, he wants to kill. Shakespeare’s play is about a man’s hatred of a man: Iago’s hatred of Othello. It is a profound difference between the story and the play.

This publication of Cinthio’s Desdemona, as well as giving us a fresh new English translation (in a parallel language edition), is accompanied by an extensive introduction and afterword. These explore misogyny and attitudes towards race and gender in Renaissance Italy and Elizabethan England.

What were attitudes to domestic violence of this era, and what would Cinthio’s readers and Shakespeare’s audience have understood from the story? What might Cinthio and Shakespeare have wanted them to take away? Are the story and play racist, or do they only portray racism? Can we talk of racism, before the word was even invented? How have they influenced our ideas about relationships between men and women and race down the centuries?

These and other questions are explored.

Yet at its heart, this book presents Cinthio’s storytelling, storytelling so compelling that it inspired Shakespeare to pen one of literature’s most famous plays. It is a story which explores the worst in human nature and captures realities which are still with us today.

Following Matteo Bandello’s, Romeo and Juliet, Cinthio’s Desdemona is the second book in the series Shakespeare Begins.

Also available in an English only edition (paperback and ebook).

The beautiful and resourceful Contessa of Karolystria has fled her overbearing husband, but in the Forest of Bathelmatt she is overtaken by a gang of bandits.

A chance meeting with the Viscount Daguilar propels them on a rollercoaster of tongue in cheek adventures in which the Contessa’s dress plays a starring role.

But her husband is hot on her heels and he is determined to have her back.

Will the Contessa find her freedom?

What does the future hold for the Viscount?

For the first time translated into English and made available in an English-Italian parallel edition.

The Contessa of Karolystria is a comedic short story from Antonio Ghislanzoni ~ famous for his libretto for Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Aida and for many other writings.

This edition provides English translation with the Italian original text on facing pages. 

In an era disoriented, beset with rising inequality, festering hatreds, persistent injustice and brutal violence, in a world forgetting the very meaning of human rights, this book delves into the lives of ten individuals who arose to challenge the darkest chapters of human history. They walked amidst genocide, slavery, the oppression of women, the horrors of the Holocaust, and the insidious grip of racism. Yet, where others despaired or fell silent, they forged a path toward a more just future.

Their lives embodied the very essence of human rights, most of them long before those rights were written down.

This isn't a sanitized, 'official' history. Bartolomé de Las Casas, Thomas Clarkson, Lucretia Mott, Tahirih, Frederick Douglass, Alain Locke, Primo Levi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., and Albie Sachs—their stories, often marginalized in traditional narratives, reveal the true, painful but inspiring struggle for human dignity. In an era where human rights and human dignity, where the value of human life itself are once again under siege, their experiences resonate with urgent relevance.

From Las Casas's courageous defense of Indigenous peoples against colonial brutality to Martin Luther King Jr.'s unwavering stand against racial segregation, these figures demonstrate that human rights are not abstract ideals but lived realities, won through tireless activism and personal sacrifice. As we navigate contemporary challenges—from the rise of hate speech, the erosion of democratic norms to profound war crimes and violations of human rights — their legacies serve as a powerful reminder that the fight for human rights is an ongoing, evolving struggle.

This book invites you to witness their journeys, to understand the personal costs and profound triumphs of their battles, and to rediscover the enduring power of human rights in our own lives. In the words of Eleanor Roosevelt: 'Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world’ This book brings those small places, those pivotal moments, into sharp focus, offering a timely and essential perspective on the enduring quest for justice.

“In telling these stories … Michael Curtotti has … done us all a great service  ...” Chris Sidoti (former Human Rights Commissioner)

From a master of Italian verismo comes a classic short story , but with a twist. As characters come into conflict with each other, and “the Dragon” with himself, Capuana weaves together the grimness of real life with threads of subtle fairytale.

For the first time translated into English by Michael Curtotti, The Dragon the Witch and the Daughters, transports us into the life of a nineteenth century village. Don Paolo Drago, “dragon by name, dragon by nature,” appears to dominate this world, yet he barely controls his own thoughts and feelings. Despite himself, he is drawn into the destiny of two orphans.

Yet tragedy stalks the life of Don Paolo. His own daughters and wife are dead and long buried in the grave. Like a living ghost, he waits for death, carrying on a wretched existence. His bitterness is his one defense, in a world full of emptiness. Yet the arrival of the orphans challenges everything he has believed.

Could his daughters really return from the grave?

In praise of the author:

“ … the iconic representative in Italy of the art of Zola or the natural …” Luigi Pirandello (winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)

“… a leader of the verismo movement … [who] himself rebelled [against it]” Hilda Norman

“… an erudite researcher and collector of tales …” Gina Miele

This is Romeo and Juliet as you’ve never experienced it before…

By the time William Shakespeare penned the first words of the most famous romantic tragedy of our time, another storyteller had already written Romeo and Juliet. In fact, Matteo Bandello’s stories had been translated into multiple languages across Europe before the doomed lovers inspired Shakespeare to create his world-famous play.

In this edition, Bandello’s original tale has been translated and formatted for the modern reader. In contrast to Shakespearean English, Bandello's beautiful writing has a clarity and directness through which we hear, as never before, the words a real Romeo and Juliet might have said to each other. The star-crossed lovers we know are there, just as in the play, but their troubles are set in a real Verona, that Bandello knew personally.

As the tragedy unfolds to its bitter end, Bandello's heartrending story offers readers a more intimate experience of the anguish and joys that captured Shakespeare and an entire continent. Hidden for years in the ivory towers of scholarly study, Bandello’s influential tale finds new life in Michael Curtotti’s translation for students and lovers of literature alike.

This is the English language edition. A parallel English-Italian Edition is also available.

In praise of the author:

“ … the most celebrated novelist of the Italian Renaissance period …” John Payne

“Matteo Bandello … deserves to rank as the most important of the Italian novellieri … [By none] … of his contemporaries has the sheer craft of storytelling been shown more convincingly than by [Bandello] …” Percy Pinkerton

“… a true writer, prolific, polished, refined, and precise …” Leandro Alberti