From Migrant Literature to Contemporary Literature of Transcultural Italy: Forms and Effects of a Strategic Marginality
Abstract
In the territories of the former Italian colonial empire, an autonomous Italophone literature has never emerged. On the other hand, the literature of Italian emigrants in the world, although quantitatively important, remained mostly separate from national literary production without exerting any real influence on its evolution.
Different is the case, however, of the so-called migrant literature, within which it is usual to place not only the production written in Italian by immigrants, but also that of authors from former colonies or second generations. It is through this corpus, I argue, that the Italian case can enter into dialogue with postcolonial dynamics between centers and peripheries that invest other Romance language literatures.
Although today there are many reasons to abolish and definitively overcome the dividing line between migrant literature and contemporary Italian literature tout court, the chapter insists on the role that migrant production has been able to play in the Italian context, precisely as a "marginal" textual area distinct from both foreign literature in translation and contemporary Italian literature. After presenting the effects of this strategic peripherality on the Italian literary field (especially in terms of deprovincialization and revitalization of literary criticism), the contribution focuses on literary forms and genres through some emblematic examples and concludes by explaining why the distinction between migrant and Italian literature has gradually lost its meaning, suggesting some avenues for future research.