We are delighted to spotlight Product of Italy, Made in Canada: An Immigrant’s Love Letter to Food, Family, and Resilience (Latitude 46 Publishing, Fall 2025) by award-winning author Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli.
Born in Calabria and raised in Canada, Battigelli brings readers into the intimate spaces of immigrant life–family kitchens filled with homemade tomato preserves, winters in Sudbury, and the cycles of loss, love, and resilience that shape identity across generations. With honesty, humour, and warmth, her essays explore the complexities of belonging while honouring the enduring ties to Italian heritage.
Product of Italy is a vivid and deeply personal collection of creative nonfiction that traces the roles Battigelli has inhabited throughout her life—daughter, sister, mother, teacher, and writer. From resisting her childhood’s handmade clothing to reflecting on language, loss, and identity, Battigelli writes with honesty, humour, and warmth. Each piece invites readers into intimate moments that reveal the complexities of family, womanhood, and cultural inheritance.
Battigelli was born in Calabria and immigrated to Canada at age three. She has been published widely in Canada, the U.S., and Italy, and is a member of TWUC, CAA, and the Association of Italian-Canadian Writers. Her historical novel La Brigantessa received a Gold IPPY Award for Historical Fiction, and her previous collection Pigeon Soup was recognized by the American BookFest and the International Book Awards.
Product of Italy will resonate with readers of memoir, diaspora stories, and literary nonfiction who appreciate writing that is both grounded in place and expansive in feeling.
This work joins a growing body of Italian-Canadian narratives that remind us how stories of migration continue to nourish cultural memory and community.