Alice & Luigi

de Graeme Lay

The year is 1878. Luigi Galoni, a young Italian fisherman, is forced to flee his home in Pesaro and sail to New Zealand. He joins a boyhood friend, Leopoldo, in the Haast region, and together they try to break in their land. But Luigi must move on again, first to Westport, then to the isolated coast of Wellington, where he joins an Italian fishing community. There he and his young wife Alice raise a family, defying hardship, misfortune and poverty. A saga of courage, fortitude and abiding love, Alice & Luigi is also a story of the coming-of-age of youthful New Zealand, where immigrants struggle to create a better life for the generations who will follow them.