Beginning in the sulphur mines of Sicily over a century ago, when child slavery was rampant, Black Mountain takes you on a journey through time and back again. When a young boy sold into slavery finds the courage to escape his brutal existence, his life is saved by a mysterious stranger, Don Domenico, who nurses him back to health and raises him as his own family. Renamed Cesare Montenero after Sicily's own 'black mountain' Mt Etna, the boy grows up to discover that his rescue was no accident, that his physical strength is unnatural and that he has much more in common with his saviour and mentor Don Domenico than he could ever have imagined. When he meets and falls in love with the enigmatic Celeste, he finds for the first time that he is not alone. Based on factual events ranging through Italy, Paris and the rural fringes of coastal Australia, Black Mountain is a haunting and unsettling exploration of society's growing obsession with longevity and the lengths to which science will go to achieve it.

Author Biography

Venero Armanno was born in Brisbane, and has studied at the University of Queensland, the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, Queensland University of Technology, and the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. The son of Sicilian migrants, he has travelled and worked widely throughout the world. In 1995, 1997 and 1999 he lived and worked at the Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, and he is frequently invited to speak about his work in Spain and Germany. He is the author of a book of short stories, Jumping at the Moon, and the novels The Lonely Hunter, Romeo of the Underworld, My Beautiful Friend, The Volcano, Strange Rain, Firehead and Candle Life.