The youngest of the seven children of Francisco and Santa Manitta who migrated to Australia with their two eldest children, Nino and Nancy, on 14 September 1933. Frank was born in Lismore NSW on 5 November 1946, educated at Marist Brothers High School and entered a law career in Sydney after leaving school. His studies were interrupted by his conscription into the Army for the Vietnam War. On his return to the law career he resigned and joined the construction company of Eglo Engineering as a labourer and there rose to become personnel and industrial relations manager on major construction projects throughout Australian and New Guinea.
In 1990, he was the victim of a malicious assault in Perth, was comatose for three weeks and was not expected to live. It was after this that he returned home to Lismore to spend time with his elderly mother Santa and there developed a passion for writing and Nonno’s Violin is his first novel. In his heart it is not just a novel but it is his life and the boy Pippo is his shadow growing up in a family like no other. There are fifty-four descendants in this family and they all care for each other. Never once has there been anything else than the old fashioned sense of family values. This is the legacy that Francisco and Santa left behind.
Nonno’s Violin is a tribute to Francisco and Santa who prove that ordinary people can be so extraordinary. It is a tribute written from the heart. The poem “Man in Uniform” is a tribute to a man who wore a uniform without any medals for his medals were carried in his soul.
Sidharta Books & Print
Book Publishers
