Throughout the year of 2024, Riverton Press has been thinking about Rome and Russia, migration and exile. Both our upcoming books speak of migration. Sure, people have always moved around the planet, but today we have unprecedented levels of displacement. Mostly due of course to the same four old horsemen. (Do they never tire?)
Our two new books are very different, one the result of deep family history research, the other a personal memoir that examines the self through life in a “sandstone castle”. Both books are written by women born in Europe who have migrated to Australia, one via France and Canada, one via Italy and Kenya.
No Way Back, Revolution and Exile: Russian and Beyond by Nathalie Apouchtine spans three generations, three continents and more than 100 years. Her family left Russia following the 1917 Revolution, some travelled alone, some in groups, many lived in France, very few of them ever return to Russia.
Apouchtine has written a wonderful family history, including her own stories of the research process. Based on recollections, interviews, letters and travel, the book vividly illustrates the impacts of national histories on personal lives. Much of this story of course was made in other languages, mainly in Russian and French. The book includes 16 pages of photos of her family members.
The Legend of Busby by Vittoria Pasquini is also published as La Leggenda di Busby.
Yes! Riverton Press is releasing the books in two languages, the English version has been translated from the Italian by Gino Moliterno.
Pasquini’s memoir, written in the third person, is a journey inward, a journey through the rooms of the sandstone house, a non-linear telling of life experiences. We move around Rome, Nairobi, Sydney and Canberra via the table of family and guests, an unloved laundry, a shared bathtub. It’s a generous table. As Filippo la Porta says in his introduction, “a cosmopolitan space where diversity is fraternally welcomed”.
The Busby Legend and Leggenda will be released in late November, with a launch in Bondi. No Way Back will be released soon after.
The covers of the books are stories in themselves, the illustration of the Busby house and legend was made by one of Pasquini’s young granddaughters.
