Multicultural Literature in Contemporary Italy

by Orton, Marie; Parati, Graziella

• ISBN13: 9781611473773
• ISBN10: 1611473772
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-08-01
• Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Summary

This volume is intended as complementary to Mediterranean Crossroads: Migration Literature in Italy that traced the changes in literature written by migrants in Italy from 1990 to the end of that decade. The short stories and excerpts from novels included in that volume concentrated on very specific themes such as exile, displacement, cultural fragmentation, otherness, racism, and other concerns that are characteristic of the writings of a first generation migrants. The goal of this new collection is to provide both scholars and students of global migrations with further examples of the wealth of literary material created by migrants to Italy. These migrants come from a vast number of countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, South America, and the Middle East. The authors included here are not intended to reflect demographic percentages, but rather a cross-section and sampling of the current literary production. The texts included in this new volume demonstrate that not only has the number of published texts by migrant writers multiplied in just a few short years, but that the level of sophistication in the writings has also markedly increased. The topics discussed vary widely from text to text, and the most recognizable differences between these texts and those included in Mediterranean Crossroads is the widespread use of humor in the newer writings, even in discussions of painful situations of isolation and racism. Some authors, such as Christiana de Caldas Brito, Tahar Lamri, and Yousef Wakkas, were included in Mediterranean Crossroads. Their works here illustrate the changes in what might have earlier been classified as Italophone literature. Other authors in this volume.com plicate any simplistic notions of what migration literature in Italian is, and what Italian literature itself is. This directly challenges traditional discourses regarding national literatures, and demonstrates that migration literature in Italy is no passing phenomenon: it is here to stay. Migration literature closely dialogues with Italian tradition while simultaneously influencing contemporary cultural hybridization.