A New Research Field: Italophone Migrant Literature

Department of Italian Studies

Dr M.Cristina Mauceri

I am interested in a very new research field: Italophone migrant literature. One of the side effects of Italy’s recent transformation into a country of immigration has been the publication of literary texts written by migrant writers coming from European and non European countries.

“This research field is very exciting because I can follow a literary phenomenon from its birth through its continuous development. Another positive aspect is that I can contact and interview the writers, who are always surprised and flattered that someone coming from the other side of the world is interested in their works. As a result of my research I have presented papers at conferences in Italy and Australia and published several articles and interviews on migrant writers. One essay has been recently published in the volume Across Genres, Generations and Borders. Italian Women Writing Lives (referenced below). Last year I was asked to write the afterword for the second collection of short stories by an Italo-Brazilian writer, Christiana de Caldas Brito. This year I have been invited as a Guest Speaker at the Conference on Il dispatrio e i confini letterari which takes place at the Università di Roma “La Sapienza” in March 2005.

I am now working on a project titled “Writing outside the borders” which deals with writers from outside Italy who live in Italy as well as with Italian writers who live elsewhere in Europe. This project, carried out in collaboration with Dott. Franca Sinopoli of the Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, questions the traditional monocultural concept of Italian literature, showing that as Europe becomes more integrated, one should start to think about transnational European literature rather than literatures bounded by national borders.” – Dr M. Cristina Mauceri

• “La straniera di Tawfik: un dialogo tra culture” in Studi di Italianistica dell'Africa Australe, June 2003.
• “Helga Schneider: la scrittura come testimonianza” in: Kúmá. Creolizzare l’Europa, n. 6, Aprile 2003.
• “Le parole liberano l’anima: intervista con Christiana de Caldas Brito", Kúmá. Creolizzare l’Europa, 8 (2004).
• “La lettura come viaggio: intervista con Helena Paraskeva”, Kúmá. Creolizzare l’Europa , 8 (2004)
• ”Igiaba Scego: la seconda generazione di autori transnazionali sta già emergendo”, El Ghibli n. 4 (June 2004).
• “La scrittura come ponte tra due culture e realtà diverse” Afterword to the collection of short stories by Christiana de Caldas Brito, Qui e là, Isernia: Cosmo Iannone, 2004
• “Writing outside the borders: personal experience and history in the works of Helga Schneider and Helena Janeczek” in Across Genres, Generations and Borders: Italian Women Writing Lives, edited by Susanna Scarparo and Rita Wilson, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004.