Sicily, 1935: Sarina, a young woman with three children, gives up her young daughter Tina to her aunt Vittoria, who lives in a different town, with no apparent explanation. The child, just four, at first is intrigued by the move, which she believes to be a summer vacation, but slowly reality settles in and her journey into abandonment begins.

"Given Away, A Sicilian Upbringing" is the chronicle of a lost childhood, written with a tight, journalistic style, reminiscent of a diary; and of the diary it also has the structure, having 97 chapters that are but glimpses into particular events of Tina's life from kindergarten to adolescence to her final trip to America at sixteen, as a promised bride.

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Source: http://www.lideamagazine.com