A story of love, dreams, exile and tragedy, told with heart-breaking beauty

'Although if they are asked before they die, they all say they came here for a better life, they do not always find a better life, do they?'

In the Victorian town of Mitref , tobacco is grown, an Italian cinema and cafe open, and people travel back and forth from Italy. A boy fishes, wanders the countryside and watches a community form, with its joys, scandals and shared understandings. Interspersed are the 'grotesques' - indelible and terrible events that sit alongside the better future they all seek.

In The Immigrants, Moreno Giovannoni depicts a family as they build a new life in a strange land. Through love and exile, industry and tragedy, their unspoken dreams and fears unfold in this astonishing and moving book.

Praise for The Fireflies of Autumn-

'I can't remember ever reading anything quite like it. It thrilled me, and made me laugh, and moved me very deeply.' -Helen Garner

'There is immense beauty in this book, and there is great sadness and there is genuine tenderness. I can't recall when I was last thrilled by a book as I am by this one.' -Christos Tsiolkas

'I have never read a migrant tale so original, so breathtaking in scope, or so magical.' -Alice Pung