From a New York Times obit by Alex Williams headlined “Helen Barolini, Chronicler of Italian American Women, Dies at 97”:

Helen Barolini, a novelist, essayist and poet who explored the challenges of assimilation, as well as the hard-won victories of feminist emancipation experienced by Italian American women, died at her home in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. S

A native of Syracuse, N.Y., whose grandparents immigrated from southern Italy in the late 19th century, Ms. Barolini brought their journey, and those of many others, to life in “Umbertina,” her celebrated 1979 historical novel tracing four generations of women in a single Italian American family as they come to terms with their origins and identity in a new land, and with an ever-changing social landscape.