Letteratura della migrazione in lingua italiana. Questioni teoriche e pratiche decolonizzanti

Migration Literature in Italian Language. Theoretical Issues and Decolonizing Practices - The essay aims to give some insights into the topic of migration literature in Italian language, seen as a potential means of acknowledgement and social integration for migrant authors and as a decolonizing occasion for Italian readers. I’m going to question the issue of definition, which at the beginning focused on the concept of italophone literature and that afterward has become more complex. It’s hard to reduce this literary phenomenon to strict etiquettes since it is constantly evolving. Moreover, limiting the literary works of first and second generation migrants in Italy to a rigid field runs the risk to betray the ambitions and the wishes of many authors, which instead refuse categories. In the first part of the article, starting from the thesis that these works mirror the social transformations which are going on, I’ll seek to contextualize the phenomenon and stress some central aspects; in the second part I will show how artistic works not only reflect changes but also deconstruct and answer back to ethnic and Euro-centric visions, starting a decolonizing process into the readers.

keywords Migrant writers in Italy (parola unica); Italophone literature (parola unica); Decolonization Italy Literature (parola unica);

Silvia Camilotti, Letteratura della migrazione in lingua italiana. Questioni teoriche e pratiche decolonizzanti in "MONDI MIGRANTI" 3/2008, pp 205-232, DOI: 10.3280/MM2008-003012