They’re A Weird Mob: Text Classics
Text Classics
Nino Culotta
Introduction by Jacinta Tynan
Who the hell’s Nino Culotta. That’s what you asked yourself when you first picked up this book, wasn’t it? Well I’m Nino Culotta. My father baptised me Giovanni—John—well Giovannino is like Johnny, and Nino is an easier way of saying it. Or a lazier way, if you like.
Just off the boat from Italy—the north—Nino Culotta arrives in Sydney. He thought he spoke English but he’s never heard anything like the language these Australians are speaking.
They’re a Weird Mob is an hilarious snapshot of the immigrant experience in Menzies-era Australia, by a writer with a brilliant ear for the Australian way with words.
Watch film clips from the 1966 film production of They’re a Weird mob on australianscreen, a website operated by the National Film and Sound Archive.
