Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Dom's Life in Short Stories
    Dom's Life in Short Stories
    Dom's Life in Short Stories
    Ebook135 pages1 hour

    Dom's Life in Short Stories

    By Victor Bellini

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    In the summer of 2022, at the age of ninety, Domenico Bellini wrote nine short stories about the amazing life he lived.
    It all started as a child caught between two world wars.
    - In 1940, at the age of eight, he spent two years in children war camps,
    - In 1943, at eleven, he lived through bombing raids in Lanciano (his native town in central Italy), while helping his mother and younger siblings survive.
    - In 1945, at the end of the war, while still in Lanciano, he had his first job as a 'salesman' in a local store. He was not yet fourteen at the time.
    - In 1947, at fifteen, he, along with his mother and siblings, rejoined his father in Libya (a former Italian colony) and helped run a local store in Garian, a small mountain town just south of Tripoli.
    - In 1952, at twenty, he looked after his younger brother while studying and working in Tripoli.
    He continued his accounting education (interrupted by the war) by correspondence and built a career starting at the American military base in Tripoli and continuing over the years in Belgium, Canada, France, and Italy. He saw it all through the ups and downs of fifteen career jobs, the last three of which at senior executive levels. He did so in four countries and in three languages to finally retire in Canada. His life is an example of mental fortitude and uncompromising integrity in the face of major family crises and too many personal misfortunes.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherVictor Bellini
    Release dateJun 21, 2023
    ISBN9798352333266
    Dom's Life in Short Stories
    Author

    Victor Bellini

    Victor or Vittorio Bellini - a retired business executive - received his early education in Italy and later in England and Canada. He joined a multinational corporation and was fast-tracked to senior management postings in several countries. In his retirement he drew from his international knowledge to create engrossing stories in global settings. The author lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

    Read more from Victor Bellini

    Related to Dom's Life in Short Stories

    Related ebooks

    Biographical/AutoFiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      Lost in History

      Apr 1, 2018

      Lost in History
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Politics of Pinocchio

      Sep 12, 2022

      The Politics of Pinocchio
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Lola Jaye

      Jun 10, 2022

      Lola Jaye is a British author, speaker and psychotherapist. Born and raised in London, she has also lived in Nigeria and the US. Lola is a member of the Black Writers’ Guild and has written five previous works of fiction, but The Attic Child is her f

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Lola Jaye

      Jun 10, 2022

      Lola Jaye is a British author, speaker and psychotherapist. Born and raised in London, she has also lived in Nigeria and the US. Lola is a member of the Black Writers’ Guild and has written five previous works of fiction, but The Attic Child is her f

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      On the Morning After the Sixties

      Oct 1, 2019

      Joan Didion has been one of California’s most acute observers since the early 1960s; in such books as Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album, she lays bare both the aspirations and the hypocrisies of the state. This fall, Library of America

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      After The Fall

      Oct 15, 2021

      After The Fall
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Heartbreaks & misadventures

      Aug 21, 2020

      Among other things, your book is a culinary adventure. Why is food such a central theme? You can’t write a book about Italians without food playing a major role. It is such a fundamental part of the Italian culture. Italians bond over eating – it’s

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      WRITING WITH child’s eyes

      Dec 2, 2021

      There can be no more beloved storyteller for children than Michael Morpurgo, and no-one either who tells stories about war and the need to take care of the planet with such emotional resonance. But although Michael’s many books, which include War Hor

      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Bellezza, Tragedia, Forza

      Feb 10, 2022

      Bellezza, Tragedia, Forza
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      ‘Just William’ stories

      Jun 22, 2022

      ‘Just William’ stories
      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Return Of The 60s Neurosis

      Jun 30, 2022

      BY THE TIME THE VETERAN journalist Christopher Booker died in 2019, he had witnessed enough of the twenty-first century to notice how much his book on the 1960s (The Neophil iacs, published in 1969) resonated with it. Two years into this decade, it’s

      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      ‘I Wanted It To Be A Study Of A Certain Kind Of Englishness’

      Oct 31, 2022

      Were you a reluctant screenwriter? I’m one of these awful people, the equivalent of the ones that come up to me to say, I’ve got a great idea for a novel. So I had a great idea for a film, an Ikiru remake set in post-war Britain with Bill Nighy in i

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      OF LOVE & shadows

      Oct 23, 2020

      OF LOVE & shadows
      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Tragedy, Comedy And An Italian Parable

      Sep 26, 2024

      IT’S SOMETIMES SAID THAT THE DIFFERENCE between a short story and a novel is that a story contains a moment — often a moment of change for the protagonist — while a novel has a broader sweep. Certainly stories which try to do more can feel cramped an

      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Power Of Living

      May 5, 2020

      The Power Of Living
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Conversation

      Aug 8, 2017

      The Conversation
      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Books

      Aug 22, 2022

      Books
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Man in the White Suit: Remembering Tom Wolfe

      May 21, 2018

      Henry Grunwald, Joyce Carol Oates, Taki, Ned Rorem, Annie Leibovitz, and others recall encounters with Tom Wolfe, the dandyish inventor of New Journalism and novelist, who died Monday at age 87. 1. Tidewater Virginian Gentleman …into the clackety-cla

      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Love Letters To Kim

      May 20, 2020

      Love Letters To Kim
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Farewell to Larry Siedentop

      Sep 26, 2024

      Farewell to Larry Siedentop
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      American Survival: The Millions Interviews Jung Yun

      Jan 19, 2022

      Growing up in an immigrant family, I was taught the value of hard work and pulling myself up by my bootstraps. But what happens when hard work isn’t enough? The post American Survival: The Millions Interviews Jung Yun appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Dom's Life in Short Stories

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Dom's Life in Short Stories - Victor Bellini

      Foreword

      There have been many great thinkers in the world. Their genius changed forever the life of many generations of humans and continues to do so at an ever increasing rate. The physical and social evolution of our planet, from prehistoric times to current interplanetary travel, is due to them. They are present in all fields of knowledge, with innovative ideas and technological tools that keep on changing the way we live.  Many of those thinkers, from Babylonian times onward, have become well known to us all, not just for what they achieved, but also for how they did it. Some of them had to endure major hardships along the way, while others had it relatively easy. Whatever the case, their stories, as reflected in their biographies, have inspired many young people to do their best and aim high in their chosen career. 

      Similar sources of inspiration, however, can also be found in the life of many other great thinkers who remained unsung and forgotten. They belong to a special class of people who lived an exemplary life of uncompromising integrity, compassion, altruism and hard work, coupled with the tenacity to pursue their ideals to the bitter end. They have had the misfortune to live through too many setbacks, all beyond their control. Such people never achieved global greatness, but they did so within their own sphere of influence, and are so remembered by those who have had the privilege to know them.

      One such person, Domenico Bellini, is the subject of this book and is the result of a collection of short stories he wrote in Italian, at the age of ninety, as he reflected on his life. As his younger brother I encouraged him to write those stories and took it upon myself to translate and compile them into a biography. It’s intended to be a testimonial to the man and to the kind of life he lived.

      He is undoubtedly one of the most unassuming, selfless, helpful, honest and somewhat bashful man anyone will ever know. I am proud to be his younger brother.

      Vittorio Bellini

      *****

      Prologue

      Domenico Bellini came to this world on April 23, 1932. He was born to a family of cabinet makers in the town of Lanciano, in the Abruzzo region of central Italy. At the time, European countries were still reeling from the ravages of World War One, as they worked hard on rebuilding their infrastructures and reviving their economy. Italy too was in the process of rebuilding, but it did so by reinventing itself, as it steered away from an ineffective monarchy.

      Contrary to most other European countries that continued to be governed by democratic regimes, whether monarchies or republics, Italy chose to be governed by a young demagogue, Benito Mussolini, leader of a ‘fascist’ party he created in the immediate postwar days, at the age of thirty-six. His popular March on Rome in 1922 forced King Vittorio Emanuele III to appoint him Prime Minister of what used to be a democratically elected parliament. Three years later, in 1925, he turned Fascism into a dictatorship and called himself Il Duce (The Leader). It was a period of time when dramatic changes were taking place in the political arena of Europe. Fascism was followed by Nazism in 1933 when another demagogue and dictator by the name of Adolf Hitler ruled Germany as its Fȕhrer. Such political changes soon led to a Second World War, with catastrophic consequences. Thus, Domenico experienced the agony of bomb shelters in his pre-teens years and then again the agony of postwar problems in his teenage years. One can easily imagine the emotional scars left in him by the time he reached the age of maturity.

      It is not possible to imagine what it means to be born and grow up between two World Wars, while running from bomb shelter to bomb shelter as a child and then face, as a young man, the hostile environment of angry Libyan nationalists seeking retribution from former Italian colonialists. It’s a unique experience that shapes the character of a man in special ways, as can be appreciated while reading Domenico’s personal story.

      He was the second child of Carmine and Eugenia (née Cotellessa) Bellini, born during a period of massive emigration of workers to four Italian colonies in Africa. Professionals and tradesmen were being recruited and shipped with their families to build infrastructures and populate their newly acquired territories. Carmine had tried to immigrate to America on a previous occasion, but without success, apparently because of poor eyesight. He then tried again by joining a family of farmers and close friends, the Nativios, slated to immigrate to Libya. Thus, in 1935, Carmine Bellini and the Nativio family left Lanciano for Garian, a small mountain town 88 kilometers south of Tripoli. A few months later the rest of the family, including, three-year-old Domenico, sister Violetta (then 8), their mother Eugenia (aka Caterina, then 33), and Carmine’s younger brother Michele (then 23) joined them and reunited in Garian as a family and as colonialists. They lived initially in a small two-bedroom apartment in central Garian, where they remained till the start of the war. It is at this point that Domenico’s personal story starts. He wrote it all in the summer of 2022, strictly from memory, in a series of short stories that have been translated and reported hereunder in italics.

      *****

      First Story

      Life in children camps (1940-42)

      In early 1939, Mussolini, believing that the war front would eventually reach Libya, decreed that all school-aged children be sent back to Italy to live in special maritime camps set up for the purpose. Thus, my sister Violetta (13) and I (8), along with other children from families living in Garian, were sent to Riccione, a well-known vacation town in the region of Emilia-Romagna, on the Adriatic coast. Violetta was in an all-girl camp while I was in an all-boy one. We were therefore separated and never saw each other while at camp.

      It would be hard to describe the emotional state we were in at the time. As an eight year-old boy, I could not possibly understand the imperatives of that move. All I knew was that I was being abandoned by my family, destined to live in an orphanage. I remember crying my eyes out in those early days, while my older sister tried to console me. Violetta, then thirteen, was like a mother to me during the time we were together, but it didn’t last long. I have no idea how she felt at that sad junction of our life, but my guess is that she did not feel much better than I did. We were essentially orphans, abandoned children in a scary world at war, without knowing whether we would survive, let alone be reunited with our loved ones.

      We stayed in Riccione for the first year and we were then moved to Ceriale di Pietra-Ligure, near the town of San Remo, on the Italian Riviera, where we remained for one more year. As a result, Violetta and I spent a total of two years away from each other and away from our parents. Both camps were located on a sandy beach and were well known for summer vacations, but for us children of war those places were more like prison camps, especially in the first few weeks of our stay.

      Of the children who moved with me I only remember a boy from the Lupacchini family. He was a few years older than me and became my ‘protector’, so to speak, from abusive behaviour of inevitable bullies in our midst. We lived under the watchful eyes of a few lady-guardians. They enforced a severe discipline on us, but were otherwise very kind and helpful. We were told to make our own bed with great care, and be strictly silent at bedtime. Those who did not abide by the rules were shamed and punished openly, as examples for the rest of us. Some of the younger children cried a lot during the first few days. They received more attention than the older children but even after they stopped crying they were always sad. It took a long time before we accepted our fate and got used to living away from home. The sadness in our heart, however, remained and was clearly reflected in our eyes.

      The food we had for lunch on week days was clearly insufficient, as we were hungry most of the time. Being hungry was a problem that made some bigger kids find ‘food’ in the most unlikely places. One day a couple of them showed the rest of us where to find edible roots growing by the beach. They told us that those roots were good to eat and showed us how to choose and pull them out of the ground. I was hungry, so I picked one and ate it. Then I picked more, just like other kids were doing. I remember them tasting somewhat sour-sweet.

      From that day on pulling roots became a habit, but only for a few bigger kids. I remember waiting eagerly for Sundays, because on all festive days we were treated with lots of good food. In the evening our meal consisted of vegetable soup, along with bread and cheese. Sometimes, when they were in season, we were served boiled chestnuts. I loved them so much that I often traded my bread for a portion of chestnuts.

      In our leisure time we played children's games, including ball on the beach. We were allowed to swim or learn how to

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1
      pFad - Phonifier reborn

      Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

      Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


      Alternative Proxies:

      Alternative Proxy

      pFad Proxy

      pFad v3 Proxy

      pFad v4 Proxy