About Kiwake

Language, culture, and applied philosophy from a trilingual educator.

🇬🇧 This page is in English · Scrivo anche in italiano — scopri il sito

I am a writer, language teacher, and chronic border-crosser — both literally and metaphorically. I am also one of the founders and ex-president of La Pecora Nera APS, in Lecce. No longer now. I have spent years trying to understand what it means to truly communicate across cultures and different human beings — not just translate words, but translate worlds.

I currently live in Salento, in the deep south of Italy, where I currently teach Italian to foreigners in various states of being. I work in the spaces between — between languages, between backgrounds, between the person someone was and the person they are becoming. That in-between is where I feel most at home.

I write in Italian and in English. I feel I must apologise about this but I no longer will. It's just the way my brain works.

Kiwake is the space where I think out loud. About language and how it shapes us. About culture and what it asks of us. About the stories we tell ourselves — especially the ones we've inherited without ever choosing them. It may also one day become a physical meetng space, who knows. Would you like to offer me a location to do so? Write to me, I'd be most interested.

I am working on my second, this time autobiographical, book. The first was The House of Blue and you may or may not find it online.

What you'll find here

• Articles on language learning and multilingualism
• Reflections on culture, identity, and belonging
• Stories from the classroom and from the road
• Thoughts on authentic communication and human connection