Mark Rotella writes about Calabria, the arched southern foot of Italy where his family lived before coming to America, the obvious next Italian subject now that there's a slim volume about every small Tuscan town (except one, and I shall not be giving directions). In Stolen Figs: And Other Adventures in Calabria (North Point, $25, available in July), he teases out a change of mind: how he came to see the difference between being Italian and being Italian-American. Calabria, he says, produced more Americans than any other Italian region except Campania and Sicily.
It's tricky territory, though: poor, famous for violence and kidnappings. Its culture is elusive and unfamiliar, with no Michelangelos to show. Its landscape is composed of mountain and coast, with almost nothing in between. Its people are famously stubborn -- ''hardheaded,'' even ''wooden heads.'' Northern Italians despise Calabria and see only the dirt; foreigners are nervous there. Its own native sons too often become defensive or downright euphemistic when they write about the poverty and the omerta that are inscribed in its history.
There are already bad books on the subject; this one is good, the product of persistent, gentle curiosity and persistently open eyes. Judges travel with armed guards and people are surprised when a stranger comes back intact from remote Greek-speaking villages, but there are also the feasts and joys and faith of a hardscrabble life. By the end, you're no longer so startled that Sybaris, the indulgent city of the Sybarites, once lay in Calabria.