Product of Italy, Made in Canada: An Immigrant’s Love Letter to Food, Family, and Resilience
Creative Non-Fiction
Pub date: October 23, 2025
5.5 x 8.5 in | 157 pgs
Trade Paperback: 9781988989983
ePub: 9781988989990
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In this creative non-fiction collection, award-winning teacher and author Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli depicts roles she has assumed over the decades: daughter, sister, mother, teacher. Rebelling at some of the handmade clothes she had to wear in her youth, spending time in hospital as her dad’s health fails, learning some life lessons from her students, and reflecting on the influences of her first language and culture, Battigelli shares these and other stories vividly. Whether navigating the choppy waters of family challenges & loss or recounting lighter moments, Battigelli writes with unflinching honesty, measured doses of humour, and with heart and spirit. The stories encapsulate the moments and incidents that have impacted her in various ways throughout her life, ways that ultimately helped shape her character and sensibilities as a daughter, mother, teacher, and writer.
Praise for Product of Italy, Made in Canada
In Product of Italy, Made in Canada, An Immigrant’s Love Letter to Food, Family, and Resilience, Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli proves herself a virtuosa of creative non-fiction, blending poetic precision with emotional depth and gentle humour. Rooted in Italian heritage and quiet resilience, this tender collection finds solace in small, sensory joys—spoonfuls of Nutella, the scent of home cooking, the rhythm of ritual and conversation. With honesty and grace, Battigelli offers a heartfelt meditation on identity, loss, and renewal, exploring the spaces between longing and belonging.
— Elio Iannacci, Globe and Mail, Vogue Italia
About the Author
A multiple award-winning teacher and writer, Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli was born in Calabria, Italy, and immigrated to Canada with her family at three years of age. She is a professional member of The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC), the Canadian Authors Association (CAA), the Association of Italian-Canadian Writers (AICW), the Italian American Writers Association (IAWA) and the Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators, & Performers (CANSCAIP). An alumna of the Humber School for Writers, she has been published in twenty anthologies and journals and has read at many conferences and literary events in Canada, the U.S. and Italy. Her novel La Brigantessa (Inanna Publications, 2018) was awarded a 2019 Gold IPPY Award for Historical Fiction, and was a finalist for two Canadian Literary Awards in 2019. Pigeon Soup & Other Stories (Inanna, 2021) was honoured as a Finalist in the Fiction: Short Story category of the 2021 American BookFest Best Book Awards and the 2022 International Book Awards.
Along with writing historical fiction, short fiction, and creative non-fiction, Rosanna has had five romance novels published with Harlequin/Mills & Boon (Harper Collins) and two children’s books published with Pajama Press. Rosanna lives in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. (www.rosannabattigelli.com)
