Home/The Author
Domenico
Zagaroli
Born in Ciociaria. Came to this country in 1958. Wrote it down so it would not be lost.
A record of one family, made so that the grandchildren would know where they are from and what it cost to leave.
A portrait
A photograph of Domenico will be placed here. For now, the desk where the book was written stands in for him.
A life in two countries
Domenico Zagaroli grew up in Ciociaria, the hill country southeast of Rome, in a household and a village that still ran on the old rhythms — the fields, the feast days, the dialect, the shared oven. In 1958 he came to the United States, one of the hundreds of thousands of Italians who left the south and center of the country in those years for work in America.
He built a life here. He also, like most people who leave somewhere they loved, kept the old place furnished in memory: the names, the streets, the meals, the way certain things were done. Growing Up Ciociari began as the record he wanted his own family to have — the story told properly, once, in his own words, rather than in pieces at the table.
It is his first book. It is written plainly and in order, with the intention of being useful to the people who come after him: here is where we are from, here is who was there, here is what it was like, and here is the crossing that changed everything.
1958
Came to America
I
First book
2026
Published
For readers and organizers
Domenico is glad to talk with Italian-American societies, parish groups, libraries and book clubs, and to anyone whose own family made a similar crossing.
Be told the day the book is out.
One note at release, with the links. That is all.