Angelo Spina, professor of Italian language and literature at Rutgers University, Newark, recently publishedIl Cucchiaio Trafugato  (The Stolen Spoon).  The novel tells the story of an old Italian immigrant, who one day, decides to leave New York, the city in which he lives, and from which he had hoped to run away from the oppressive fascist culture in Italy only to be afflicted now by the New York Mafia.  

The novel represents the fearless spirit of a freethinking individual with the great imagination of a storyteller. The main character sees people’s life in progressive motion, as one sees it watching it on large movie screen. He sees evolving people’s lives while looking in his home bathroom mirror; he sees moving lives by watching in a crack on the wall of a barbershop.