Synopses & Reviews
In 1986, love drew Theresa Maggio to Favignana, an island just off the coast of Sicily. There the young journalist encountered the mysterious world of the
tonnara-the ritual trapping and killing of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean Sea-and the
mattanza, the stunning, bloody climax of the fishing season when the huge fish are wrestled from the sea and killed.
Mattanza is the riveting story of Maggio's annual return to witness this timeless struggle between man and the sea.
An alluring blend of memoir, history, and travelogue, Mattanza documents an insular and exotic world where the tonnara continues according to ancient ritual even as modern fishing methods edge it towards extinction.
Review
"Riveting...beautifully and compassionately documents an arcane way of life and death." The New York Times
Review
"Brave and imaginative" The Washington Post
About the Author
Theresa Maggio, the granddaughter of Sicilian immigrants, grew up in the New Jersey Meadowlands. After college she hitchhiked coast-to-coast alone three times. She finally settled down in Vermont in 1975, and made laser optics there until she was recruited by Los Alamos National Laboratory. Since the early 1990s, she has worked as a free-lance travel writer. Her work has appeared frequently in the New York Times as well as the Financial Times, London Daily Telegraph, New York Daily News, and Miami Herald, among other publications.