Interrupted Narratives and Intersectional Representations in Italian Postcolonial Literature

Description

This book argues for the importance of adopting a postcolonial perspective in analysing contemporary Italian culture and literature. Originally published in Italian in 2018 as Riscrivere la nazione: La letteratura italiana postcoloniale, this new English translation brings to light the connections between the present, the colonial past and the great historical waves of international and intranational migration. By doing so, the book shows how a sense of Italian national identity emerged, at least in part, as the result of different migrations and why there is such a strong resistance in Italy to extending the privilege of italianità, or Italianness, to those who have arrived on Italian soil in recent years. Exploring over 100 texts written by migrant and second-generation writers, the book takes an intersectional approach to understanding gender and race in Italian identity. It connects these literary and cultural contexts to the Italian colonial past, while also looking outwards to a more diffuse postcolonial condition in Europe. Acknowledgments Praise for Interrupted Narratives and Intersectional Representations in Italian Postcolonial Literature Contents Chapter 1: Introduction: Decolonizing Italian Literature Bibliography Chapter 2: Italian Postcolonial Literature: An Overview 2.1 Introduction 2.2 The First Phase: Migration Literature (1990–1994) 2.3 The Second Phase (1994–2000) 2.4 The Third Phase (2001–2019) 2.4.1 The Third Phase: Some Prominent Writers (Indirect Postcolonial Literature) 2.4.2 The Third Phase: Albanian Italian Literature 2.4.3 The Third Phase: (Direct) Postcolonial Literature 2.4.4 The Third Phase: Igiaba Scego, Ubax Cristina Ali Farah, and Gabriella Ghermandi 2.4.5 The Third Phase: Second-Generation Writers and Anthologies 2.5 The Fourth Phase (2019–) 2.6 Conclusion Bibliography Chapter 3: Gender and Its Intersections 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Intersectionality: A Definition 3.3 Colonial Imaginaries: Black Venuses 3.4 Postcolonial Imaginaries: Counternarratives 3.5 Alle Frauen Werden Schwester? Relationships of Power and (Failed) Sisterhood among Women 3.6 Conclusion Bibliography Chapter 4: Defying the Chromatic Norm: Race, Blackness, (In)Visibility, Italianness, Citizenship 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Between Invisibility and Hypervisibility 4.3 Different Shades of Italianness: Blackness and Citizenship in the Narratives of Second-Generation Authors 4.3.1 Literature 4.3.2 Film and Television Series 4.4 Strategies of Invisibility and Aesthetic Practices of Italian Transdiasporic Blackness 4.5 Conclusion Bibliography Chapter 5: Geographies of Diaspora and New Urban Mappings 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Postcolonial Urban Countermapping 5.3 “Hate Breeds Hate”: Narratives from the Periphery 5.4 Conclusion Bibliography Index