Italians as indentured labourers in Southern cotton plantations at the turn of the twentieth century? Entire families scrabbling to survive, dying of malaria, building relationships with their neighbours, many the first generation of freed slaves? Sweet Hope unleashes the little known story of Italians who came looking for a better life in La Terra Nuova and found hardship, misery and their own form of slavery instead. {Guernica}

Mary Bucci Bush received her M.A. and D.A. from the graduate program in creative writing at Syracuse University, where she worked with George P. Elliott and Raymond Carver. Her short story collection, A Place of Light, was published by Guernica in 2006. Her novel, Sweet Hope, about Italians and African Americans working together on a Mississippi Delta cotton plantation 1901-1906, was recently released with Guernica. She lives in Pasadena, California.

Mary Bucci Bush's profile page

• Short-listed, Paterson Fiction Prize/John Gardner Book Award

Slavery lives on in America, just under the radar. Sweet Hope is a novel of the cruelty endured by Italian immigrants as they came to America at the turn of the twentieth century. Opportunity gone sour, she tells a story of people enslaved while living next to the very people who were in their place merely decades ago. Sweet Hope is an insightful read with plenty to ponder, very much recommended reading.