Migrant and postcolonial Pinocchio. Practices of subjectivation across Central Europe, Italy and Africa
Abstract
The article deals with two recent adaptations of The Adventures of Pinocchio, written by the famous Italian author Carlo Collodi: the novel Occhio a Pinocchio (2006) by the Slovak italophone writer Jarmila Očkayová and the play Pinocchio nero (2005) directed by Marco Baliani and performed by some street kids from Nairobi. Notwithstanding the differences between their works (the context of the production and reception, the audience and the literary genre), my first aim is to demonstrate that the two authors share the same postcolonial strategies vis-a-vis the source text: both authors borrow a literary work from the western canon and they transform it into an allegory of the subjectivation processes of the marginalized people, whether they are the writers migrating to Italy or the street kids from the Kenyan bidonvilles.
The second aim is methodological. My approach to these adaptations, which can be applied beyond the chosen corpus, intends to highlight the retroactive effect that the adaptations may have on the source-text, in particular the ability to point out or emphasize some specific meanings of the adapted text, which were previously marginalized or neglected.