Welcome back to another episode of the Immigrants and Exiles series recorded at the Beachcomber Café in St.Kilda. Today we hear about the early adventures of young Arthur in a country schoolyard, about the value of ‘bi-linguism’ in brain development but also how being cosmopolitan was a barrier to being socially acceptable or ‘integratable’. Inclusivity was, and still remains, largely elusive in a country like Australia that measures the worth of people by their resemblance to the cultural establishment. At many levels - at the institutional and the popular - there continues a resistance movement against difference. New arrivals need to fit an old template.

Music: “Why Bother” by Walter Musolino & Davide Musolino.

Welcome back to another episode of the Immigrants and Exiles series recorded at the Beachcomber Café in St.Kilda. Get ready for some history lessons on the impacts of war, on Italian repopulation of the planet and on citizen historians, all of which brings to light the colour and wonder of migration. Through stories retold and benign memories shared between generations, we hear how sentimental bonds are forged between the original adventurers and their descendants. But we also discover how the offspring listening are inevitably infected by an incurable disease: a niggling sense of their own displacement, of cultural deprivation and even loss of identity because part of them belongs elsewhere. And so, communicable nostalgia - an intense desire for a fictional place never experienced - is born. And grows.

Music: “Runaway” by Walter Musolino & Davide Musolino.

Welcome back to another episode of the Immigrants and Exiles podcast series recorded at The Beachcomber Café in St. Kilda. Today our chat revolves around a truism about migration. You won’t find a better life in another country – yes, it’s ‘out there’ – rather you have to make your life better. Like gold, it’s not waiting for you, you have to fossick and pan, dig and extract: invest, struggle, fail and go again. In other words, a better life is a determination, a state of mind, not a dream, a form of escapism. Dreamers, wake up!

Life Coming Down On You Today (remix) by Walter Musolino and Davide Musolino.

Welcome back to another episode of the Immigrants and Exiles podcast series at The Beachcomber Café in St.Kilda. This time we hear Walter tell us about his enrolment at the Scuola Normale in Pisa. I remember going past the gates of the Scuola Normale when I was attending the rather ordinary University of Pisa, going through the gates and into the cafeteria and buying myself a plate of pasta and sitting there and eating it with all the upper class, elite students. I started by asking Walter why he went to the university, that is, to the Scuola Normale in Pisa.

Music: “The Man Who Visited The Earth” by Walter Musolino & Davide Musolino.

“Allora, Walter, tell me then… you want to tell me a bit more about your grandparents…”

Music: “Runaway” by Walter Musolino & Davide Musolino.

Welcome to the Immigrants and Exiles podcast recorded at The Beachcomber Café in St. Kilda. We’re calling this one: ‘Walter Goes To Italy’. This time Walter talks about his visits to Italy and the people he met over there. He first went back at the age of nine in 1963 although he refuses to confirm that. Walter, start talking…

Music: “A Girl, A Picture, A Wall” by Walter Musolino & Davide Musolino.

Welcome to the second part of an episode of the podcast series Immigrants and Exiles, which started as a conversation between myself, Walter, and my friend, Moreno, regarding his second novel: The Immigrants.

We talked about so many topics: love, loving, having loved, having no luck, staying here, leaving here – that is, Australia – going back to Italy. And we finished by talking about how he wanted to stir people up. And I said some people might think that when he’s criticising Australia, or non-migrant Australians, that he’s writing a kind of revenge story, that he’s upset about things in the past. But, in fact, his passion, his motivation, reflect the conscientious effort to validate as much of the totality of the past as he experienced it and has been officially documented as having been experienced by others. He relentlessly makes demands of readers who don’t know, or of those don’t want to know, about things that happened to people who set off in search of the El Dorado of a better life: and failed. And suffered. He has written a book to restore historical memory, that seeks to speak truth to power, and all of which has made it an intriguing and disturbing work, full of joy and tragedy, impressive and absorbing, and shocking, and, in many parts, beautiful and comforting.

Welcome to the Immigrants and Exiles podcast recorded at The Beachcomber Café in St. Kilda. This is a conversation between me and my friend Walter. In this episode we talk about my next book to be published in July 2025, this year, called The Immigrants. Black Ink published my first book, The Fireflies of Autumn, in 2018. Now seven years later, here we are, finished the copy editing and all the other work that goes with publication and the book will be launched in a few months time. It’s currently out with reviewers and book sellers who may or may not want to stock it on their shelves. My life is on the line here, that’s how I feel. But I gave Walter a copy of the manuscript a few months ago and he was good enough to read it, made copious notes and we had a conversation about it which has turned into two of the longer podcasts and this is number one. We’re calling it Part One and then it will be followed, of course, by Part Two. So, now I’ll hand over to Walter and he will talk about the book and ask me questions.