Beyond Postcoloniality...

In September 1996, a young, beautiful, black woman, a naturalized Italian citizen born in the Dominican Republic by the name of Denny Mendez, was awarded the title of Miss Italia by the unanimous decision of a group of beauty pageant judges and nine million Italian tele-voters. Although Miss Mendez’s victory was the result of what amounted to a popular plebiscite, her coronation as beauty queen of Italy sparked heated controversy throughout the country and raised curiosity abroad, showing that the rhetoric of one of Italy’s best-known clothing companies—the ‘United Colors of Benetton’ motto—is based on a false premise: the colors of Italy are not quite united yet.[1]

With this anecdote, I certainly do not intend to assess the validity of such events as beauty pageants. But I mean to illustrate, with a story that is much more than symbolic, how Italy envisions itself, and is envisioned, at the end of this century and millenium. The debate over the true nature of contemporary Italian beauty reflects a new, more general concern with the redefinition of the Italian cultural identity, which, in the last few years, appears to have undergone dramatic transformation.

Since its unification, in 1861, Italy has struggled to define its own national identity, in a way that takes into account what Pasquale Verdicchio concisely calls its “indigenous cultural diversity.”[2] During the last few years, a further, multifarious layer has been added to Italian multilayered society. Traditionally a source of emigrants, the country has in fact recently become a hub for immigration. People have been arriving in flocks from various parts of the world: from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Maghreb, Cape Verde, Central Africa, Latin America, the South-West Pacific, and the Far East.

Italy was caught totally unprepared—both politically and socially—to receive such a plethora of people, whose augmenting presence called for prompt regulation. The immigrant question was immediately regarded by the nation as a European question, not only because some newcomers were arriving from neighboring countries, but especially because it inscribed itself within the broader context of a migratory trend that concerned the entire European Union. Besides transforming the Italian national texture, the increasing presence of immigrants from the four corners of the world elicited a reconsideration of the transnational European Community discourse, by raising issues of borders, ethnicity, nationality, and civil tolerance.[3] Umberto Eco remarked that this massive, diversified immigration toward Western Europe was a far more significant phenomenon for the formation of a new European identity than the crisis of communism in the former Eastern block.[4]

The manifold heritage of the newcomers has increasingly interacted with, and added to, the complex social, political, economic, religious, intellectual, artistic, and, as is clear in the example of Denny Mendez’s election as Miss Italy, even aesthetic Italian texture. As a result, the Italian landscape is changing. The immigrants’ presence has become increasingly apparent in big urban centers as well as in the countryside, in schools as much as in factories, and in politics as much as in the arts.[5]

One of the artistic fields in which their presence has become progressively visible is literature. In 1990, the publication of Senegalese-born Pap Khouma’s Io, venditore di elefanti (I, the elephant seller), Tunisian-born Salah Methnani’s Immigrato (Immigrant), and Moroccan-born Bouchane’s Chiamatemi Alì (Call me Alì) marked the beginning of what a group of people, myself included, wishes to refer to as the new Italian literature of immigration, which has been flourishing ever since. Although other denominations have been suggested to refer to this emerging literary corpus,[6] I prefer the nomenclature above, because it highlights the experience of immigration to Italy, which these authors share and address in their works, regardless of their original cultural background. In fact, if on the one hand each of these pieces reflects a personal experience, and incorporates the author’s original tradition, on the other hand they all originate from within the circumstances of Italian society, at the same time addressing it as an audience. Methnani’s novel narrates the experience of a young Tunisian man who travels the country of his dreams from South to North, only to meet with disappointment; Khouma tells the story of a Senegalese street-vendor who, after briefly residing in France, tries to make a life in Italy; whereas Bouchane’s novel is about a young Moroccan, who, after joining a group of Italian immigrant labourers, decides to change his name (Abdullah) into Alì, so that Italians will be able to pronounce it properly, while allowing him to retain his Muslim identity.

The fact that these narratives were first published in 1990 is not an accident. In the month of February of the same year, the controversial Martelli Law,[7] the first that systematically addressed the question of immigration in Italy, granted in situ immigrants—those who had entered the country prior to December 1989—a right to citizenship. This law was called, in the Italian legal jargon, a sanatoria—an amnesty, in other words, aimed to regularize the position of the considerable number of clandestine immigrants and to prevent further illegal entry into the country (although it failed in this last intent). The word sanatoria derives from the verb sanare, which means to heal, to restore somebody’s health. Graziella Parati notes the misleading connotations of this metaphor in the age of AIDS. She remarks that this terminology, borrowed from the rhetoric of sickness, seems to assume that becoming a nation of immigration involves a contamination of the body of the country, which in this legal text is narrated as diseased.[8] This malady, according to the legislation, should be cured, and further contagion prevented. Yet, Parati suggests, “[In] Narrating the multiracial nation through the legal text, Italy has attempted, and failed, to ‘practice safe text’.”[9]

Only a few months after the promulgation of the Martelli Law, Methnani, Bouchane, and Khouma offered their interpretation of the aching Italian sociopolitical, legal, and narrative body in their works, opening the path to what would soon become a copious, various literature of immigration. Claiming for themselves the right to speak with their own voices, to tell their stories from their own standpoints, and to write the history of which they were contributing participants, these writers re-manipulated and revolted against the narratives created on and about them. With the force of their own creative imagination, they portrayed their own experience as immigrants, therefore appropriating the reins of the nation’s discourse on immigration. From narrative objects, they made themselves narrative subjects. Asked what he intended to demonstrate with his book Io, venditore di elefanti, Khouma answered, “I did not start writing because I wanted to demonstrate something. What I wanted to do was to take the floor. Because Italians were talking about us, but they were asking questions and answering them all by themselves. That’s why we took the floor: to interrupt this monologue and establish a dialogue.”[10]

The example of Khouma, Bouchane, and Methnani was soon followed by a number of writers. Among these, in 1991, Saidou Moussa Ba wrote La promessa di Hamadi (Hamadi’s promise), which tells about the life of two Senegalese brothers in Italy. In 1992, Tunisian-born Mohsen Melliti published the novel Pantanella. Canto lungo la strada (Pantanella. A song along the road), about an abandoned pasta factory in Rome (La Pantanella), in which a heterogenous group of immigrants settles, but is eventually forced by police to leave. In 1993, Nassera Chorha, a first generation French woman of Algerian parents, wrote Volevo diventare bianca (I wanted to become white); and Palestinian-born Salwa Salem wrote Con il vento nei capelli (The wind through my hair), the first two extended narratives by immigrant women. In 1994, Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque wrote Princesa, the story of a Brazilian transvestite who works the streets in Italy. In 1995, times were ripe for the creation of the first literary prize exclusively dedicated to the literature of immigration—the Eks & Tra Prize—which in 1999 reaches its fifth year.

Many of the narratives mentioned so far contain an autobiographical reference in the title—Io, venditore di elefanti; Volevo diventare bianca; and so on. The autobiographical element has been crucial to the development of the Italian literature of immigration. Yet most of these narratives, especially (but not exclusively) the earliest works, were written by the immigrant authors in collaboration with native Italian writers—be they journalists, authors, editors, transcribers, or even interviewers.

The collaboration between an immigrant and a native Italian writer fictionalizes and symbolizes the actual encounter between the host society and the newcomers, while proposing a revision, if not an abandonment, of the traditional dichotomy Self/Other. Much like the social ones, these artistic encounters have been extremely positive at times, laying the bases for professional relationships and personal friendships; whereas other times they have proven to be problematic and conflictual. For instance, Nassera Chohra lamented that Alessandra Atti Di Sarro, the editor of her book Volevo diventare bianca, pressed her to reforge her narrative materials in spite of her resistance; whereas Saidou Moussa Ba, who wrote both La Promessa di Hamadi and La memoria di A. (A.’s memory) with the collaboration of Alessandro Micheletti, remarked, “Our books assume political meaning, because the immigrant and the native worked together, tried together. Therefore, these are books of encounter, dialogue, and culture.”[11]

This collaborative aspect, the autobiographical theme, the hot socio-political subject, and the direct style shared by these books determined that many regarded these narratives as “pre-literary experiences with mere sociological value.”[12] I believe that in order to appreciate the importance of these recent works by Italian immigrants, one has to read them as conscious, individual pieces of literature, without thereby denying their valuable social testimony. In fact, if one really wants to understand in full their profound anthropological, sociological, and historic value, one has to regard them in the first place as literary, artistic pieces produced by, and within, a society—the Italian, first of all, but also the European—in a process of rapid transformation.

It’s been argued that the Italian immigrants’ literature is the result of individual and social “acts of mediation”[13] through various cultural, national, and linguistic planes. These acts of mediation imply inclusion and connection among people and across spaces, which the migrant writers enrich and expand. From this perspective, I consider limiting the collocation of this literature—or of any other literature—in a hybrid, in-between space. Even when employed with the intent to avoid the subordination of these emerging voices to one, two, or more dominant discourses, I believe that this critical language, borrowed from the (dominant) postcolonial discourse, rather than eliciting connection, evokes incongruity and infertility—both connotations of the word hybridity; and it contributes to squeezing this new literature—as well as every other literature resulting from acts of mediation—into a marginal, interstitial space; a “third space,”[14] as Homi Bhabha calls it, which, ultimately, appears to be the by-product of two, or more, dominant canons. On the contrary, I maintain that these immigrants’ literary texts stretch across a plurality of spaces, which they open and connect, as the authors stress, in an effort to establish a dialogue.

My hesitation in adopting in toto the language of postcolonial criticism for the Italian literature of immigration derives from a double consideration: first of all, we are dealing with a new literature, which is the result of a social phenomenon—that of contemporary immigration—which does not necessarily coincide, although in many ways it often intersects with, that of colonialism and its aftermath. Many immigrants come from former European colonies, but only a few come from the former Italian colonies in Africa. In brief, differently from, say, England, we are not in a pervasive ‘Empire Writes Back’ situation in Italy.[15] Moreover, many of the so-called postcolonial writers indeed have a problem with the rhetoric of the postcolonial discourse. Similarly, immigrant Italian writer Moussa Ba, being asked whether he felt that he occupied a space in-between cultures and literatures, replied: “First of all, I consider myself a man who had the chance to transmit something. Then, I want to struggle to conquer one space in this world. But there are still obstacles to overcome, walls, which impede the dialogue among subjects of different cultures. The common goal is speaking with one another without frontiers.”[16]

Only a true dialogue, conducted by a plurality of voices, eliciting reciprocal comprehension and mutual respect, can promote connection among people and across spaces. Plurality is a key-word in the Italian immigrants’ literature, where it functions not only as a pivotal theme, but also, oftentimes, as an organizing textual principle.

Plurality is at the center of the short story “Pietro il folle, Pietro il saggio,” (“Peter the madman, Peter the wise man”), written in Italian by an exceptional immigrant author, and well-known postcolonial writer, Tahar Ben Jelloun. This story is part of the collection Dove lo stato non c’è (Where the State is Not Present), which the francophone Moroccan author wrote directly in Italian (Storie italiane [Italian Stories] is the explicative subtitle of the book), in collaboration with his faithful translator Egi Volterrani, whom on this occasion he refers to as his “accomplice.”[17]

The protagonist of “Pietro il folle, Pietro il saggio” is a Sicilian storyteller (a cantastorie, indeed), who travels through the squares of Italy to tell people ‘the truth.’ Because, he suggests, “Truth is not what you see. Truth is not what it is; truth is what you tell. I tell my stories without interruption, so that the truth can come out.”[18] Yet Pietro has a peculiar disability: every time somebody interrupts him while he is speaking, he begins to stutter. Therefore, he recommends, “If the truth is stuttering in my mouth, be ready to catch it, and hold on to it; put its pieces together.”[19] Pietro has two brothers: Cicciu, his Sicilian maestro, who “proclaims the truth while singing;”[20] and Moha, his Moroccan double, a ventriloquist storyteller, already protagonist of Ben Jelloun’s celebrated 1978 novel Moha le Fou, Moha le Sage—in the Italian translation, Moha il folle, Moha il saggio, which opens a plurality of literary resonances and proposes a dialogue among literary traditions. Moha can clearly hear, understand, and, differently from Cicciu, repeat without hesitation the stories of all those people—women, children, young militants—whose voices history has tried to silence. Sometimes, Pietro imagines that his Moroccan ‘brother’ now lives in Italy.

Often, I think I may meet [Moha] in Sicily. I can’t find him, but I imagine him. Once I even believed that I saw him in Mazara del Vallo’s Casbah, in a cafè full of Tunisian fishermen. They were all there, around him, listening to the latest stories from their country. The Tunisians were watching and listening to him. They were sturdy young men, who had long left their villages, and had recreated their original place in Mazara; but they still lived in sadness.[21]

In Pietro, Moha, and Cicciu, migrant, wise, and mad storytellers of the Mediterranean, one can recognize a glimpse of their ventriloquist creator, and his burning desire—as well as the Italian immigrant writers’ desire—to break the transnational walls of Silence, by telling the truth in an unedulcorated, yet highly lyrical, fashion. Moha’s, Pietro’s, Cicciu’s, and Tahar’s voices are angry, painful, frantic, lyric, cathartic, and, above all, sincere, when they amplify those of the silenced, wretched creatures of the earth.

Some have advanced the notion that Ben Jelloun should not be considered an Italian immigrant author, by virtue of the fact that he was an established Francophone writer well before his Italian book was published. I believe this is a moot point. First of all, quite a few immigrant authors had already written in one or more languages before they even learned Italian. Moreover, by choosing to set Dove lo stato non c’è in Southern Italy, and to write it directly in Italian, Ben Jelloun meant to make a precise statement: he wanted to offer his own vision of Italy, one of the countries in which he works and resides. But the Italy he describes in his stories is not flattering at all. It is a divided nation, corrupted, and indeed diseased. His unflattering portrait may be one of the main reasons for which Dove lo stato non c’è has been received with such negative criticism. Perhaps many Italian readers refuse to recognize themselves in Ben Jelloun’s portrait, in which he argues that the perennial negligence of the State—and definitely not the relatively recent presence of immigrants, which he explores in the story Villa Literno—has been the main cause of the socioeconomic and political problems of the South.[22]

By writing his “Italian Stories,” francophone Moroccan writer Ben Jelloun has established new connections among literary traditions, further expanding and making ever more visible the ‘open’ space of the immigrants’ literature. During her opening speech to the 1996 Eks&Tra Prize, Brazilian-born author Christiana de Caldas Brito remarked: “Even if I was not forced to come here, to Italy, by reasons of poverty or by the necessity of finding a job, I feel I am an immigrant in every way. For me, immigrants are those who leave behind their traditions, habits, language, and their way of living and thinking, in order to immerse themselves in a new country, with all the fascination and risk that such a situation involves.”[23]

Playwright Caldas Brito is the author of the powerful monologue Ana de Jesus, in which the protagonist/narrator, with irony and pathos, converses with the—absent—signora, for whom she works as a domestic helper. In this and her other works, Caldas Brito explores another complex aspect of this emerging literature: that of the role of the immigrant woman. Immigrant women occupy the margins of the margins of Italian society, even when they decide to speak (like Ana)—or to write (like Caldas Brito herself). In the so-called welcoming Italian society, immigrant women are often the subject of bodily invasions, toward which the law seems to be willing to close one eye (prostitution, sex industry, legal and illegal domestic labor are among their primary occupations). Although too often easily dismissed, the female presence is central to both the experience of immigration and its literature, as much as to the language that narrates and constructs the body of the nation—suffice it to think about metaphors such as terra madre, madre patria (motherland), and lingua madre (mother tongue). Somalia-born Shirin Ramzanali Fazel, author of Lontano da Mogadiscio (Far from Mogadisciu), asked how she would explain the fact that the number of immigrant men writers largely exceeds that of women, replied, “I believe that many immigrant women will start to write soon. But right now they have the problem of looking for a job, a house, etc. Once they solve these immediate problems, it will be easier for them to talk.”[24]

In her novel, Fazel writes, “The entire world is heading toward a multiracial society, and people must accept that this mechanism can’t be halted.”[25] Denny Mendez’s election as Miss Italy makes ever more visible the irreversibility of such a mechanism, which the literature of the Italian immigration explores from different perspectives, and with a variety of voices, while re-telling—or, rather, re-writing—the national literary identity.

Works cited

AA.VV. Le voci dell’arcobaleno. Santarcangelo di Romagna: Fara, 1995.

–––. Memorie in valigia. Santarcangelo di Romagna: Fara, 1997.

Allen, Beverly, Russo, Mary, eds. Revisioning Italy: National Identity and Global Culture. Minneapolis and London: U of Minnesota P, 1997.

Ben Jelloun, Tahar. Dove lo stato non c’è. Racconti italiani. Ed. Egi Volterrani. Turin: Einaudi, 1991.

Bhabha, Homi. “Postcolonial Authority and Postmodern Guilt.” Cultural Studies. Ed. Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula Treichler. New York: Routledge, 1992. 56–66.

–––. “The Third Space.” The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994. 207–221.

Bolaffi, Guido. Una politica per gli immigrati. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1996.

Bonifazi, Corrado. L’immigrazione straniera in Italia. Bologna: il Mulino, 1998.

Bouchane, Mohamed. Chiamatemi Alì. Ed. Carla De Girolamo and Daniele Miccione. Milan: Leonardo, 1990.

Brinker-Gabler, Gisela and Sidonie Smith, eds. Writing New Identities. Gender, Nation, and Immigration in Contemporary Europe. Minneapolis and London: U of Minnesota P, 1997.

Caldas Brito, Christiana. “Ana de Jesus” Le voci dell’arcobaleno. 59–61.

–––. “Lo zaino della saudade” Memorie in valigia. Ed. Alessandro Rambert and Roberta Sangiorgi. Santarcangelo di Romagna: Fara, 1997. 11–14.

Chohra, Nassera. Ed. Atti di Sarro, Alessandra. Volevo diventare bianca. Rome: E/O, 1993.

Colace, Giuliana. “Nascita di una scrittura meticcia. Gli immigrati africani in Italia.” Linea d’ombra. 13.106 (July-August 1995): 87–89.

Eco, Umberto. “L’Africa e l’Est: migrazione e liberazione.” L’Espresso (15 April 1990).

Farias de Albuquerque, Fernanda, Jannelli, Maurizio. Princesa. Rome: Sensibili alle Foglie, 1994.

Gennari, John. “Passing for Italian” Transition 72 (December 1996): 36–48.

Gnisci, Armando. La letteratura italiana della migrazione. Roma: Lilith, 1998.

Khouma, Pap Io, venditore di elefanti. Ed. Oreste Pivetta. Milan: Garzanti, 1990.

Melliti, Mohsen. Pantanella. Canto lungo la strada. Trans. Monica Ruocco. Rome: Edizioni Lavoro, 1992.

Methnani, Salah, Fortunato, Mario. Immigrato. Rome-Naples: Theoria, 1990.

Moussa Ba, Saidou, and Alessandro Micheletti. La promessa di Hamadi. Novara: De Agostini, 1991.

–––. La memoria di A. Novara: De Agostini, 1995.

Papademetriou, Demetrios G. Coming Together or Pulling Apart? The European Union’s Struggle with Immigration and Asylum. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1996.

–––. and Kimberly A. Hamilton. Converging Paths to Restriction: French, Italian, and British Responses to Immgration. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1996.

Parati, Graziella, ed. Margins at the Centre: African Italian Voices. Spec. issue of Studi d’africanistica nell’Africa Australe/Italian Studies in Southern Africa. 8.2 (1995).

–––. “Looking through Non-Western Eyes: Immigrant Women’s Narratives in Italian.” Writing New Identities. Gender, Nation, and Immigration in Contemporary Europe. Ed. Gisela Brinker-Gabler and Sidonie Smith. Minneapolis and London: U of Minnesota P, 1997. 118–142.

–––. “Strangers in Paradise: Foreigners and Shadows in Italian Literature.” Revisioning Italy: National Identity and Global Culture. Ed. Beverly Allen and Mary Russo. Minneapolis and London: U of Minnesota P, 1997. 169–190.

Pinkus, Karen. “Miss (Black) Italy.” Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire 2.1 (Fall-Winter 1998): 80–93.

Polveroni, Adriana. “L’immigrato racconta in italiano.” L’Unità (27 April 1995).

Ramzanali Fazel, Shirin. Lontano da Mogadiscio. Rome: Data News, 1994.

Richards, Charles. “Immigration and the United Colors of Italy,” The New Italians. London: Michael Joseph, 1994. 233–256.

Salem, Salwa (with Laura Maritano). Con il vento nei capelli. Vita di una donna palestinese. Florence: Giunti, 1993.

Verdicchio, Pasquale. “The Preclusion of Postcolonial Discourse in Southern Italy.” Revisioning Italy: National Identity and Global Culture. Ed. Beverly Allen and Mary Russo. Minneapolis and London: U of Minnesota P, 1997. 191–212.

–––. “The Shift from Emigrant to Immigrant Nation.” Bound by Distance. Rethinking Nationalism through the Italian Diaspora. Cranbury, NJ: Associated UP, 1997. 152–160.

[1]For a discussion on the significance of Denny Mendez’s victory as Miss Italia in the formation of the Italian contemporary multicultural society, see John Gennari, “Passing for Italian,” Transition 72 (December 1996): 36–48; and Karen Pinkus, “Miss (Black) Italy.” Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire 2.1 (Fall-Winter 1998): 80–93.

[2]Pasquale Verdicchio, Bound by Distance (Cranbury, NJ: Associated UP, 1997) 156.

[3]See Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Coming Together or Pulling Apart? The European Union’s Struggle with Immigration and Asylum (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1996); and, with Kimberly A. Hamilton, Converging Paths to Restriction: French, Italian, and British Responses to Immgration (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1996). See also Guido Bolaffi, Una politica per gli immigrati (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1996); and Corrado Bonifazi, L’immigrazione straniera in Italia (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1998).

[4]Umberto Eco, “L’Africa e l’Est: migrazione e liberazione,” L’Espresso (15 April 1990).

[5]See Charles Richards, “Immigration and the United Colors of Italy,” The New Italians (London: Michael Joseph, 1994) 233–256.

[6]Colace, for example, speaks of “meticcio writing,” while Gnisci prefers the denomination “Italian literature of migration,” see Giuliana Colace, “Nascita di una scrittura meticcia,” Linea d’ombra 13.106 (July-August 1995): 87–89; and Armando Gnisci, La letteratura italiana della migrazione (Rome: Lilith, 1998).

[8]Graziella Parati. “Looking through Non-Western Eyes,” Writing New Identities, ed. Gisela Brinker-Gabler and Sidonie Smith (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997) 118–142; 119.

[10]Graziella Parati, “Interview with Pap Khouma,” Margins at the Centre: African Italian Voices, spec. issue of Studi d’italianistica nell’Africa Australe/Italian Studies in Southern Africa 8.2 (1995): 115–120; 115–116 (my translation).

[12]Adriana Polveroni, “L’immigrato racconta in italiano” (Interview with Mario Fortunato), L’Unità (27 April 1995) (my translation).

[13]Graziella Parati, “Strangers in Paradise: Foreigners and Shadows in Italian Literature,” Revisioning Italy: National Identity and Global Culture, ed. Beverly Allen and Mary Russo, (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997) 169–90; 174.

[14]See Homi Bhabha. “Postcolonial Authority and Postmodern Guilt.” Cultural Studies, ed. Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula Treichler (New York: Routledge, 1992) 56–66; and “The Third Space.” The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994) 207–221.

[15]Verdicchio offers another interesting take on the subject of postcoloniality in Italy in his essay “The Preclusion of Postcolonial Discourse in Southern Italy” Revisioning Italy, 191–212.

[16]Graziella Parati, “Interview with Saidou Moussa Ba,” Margins at the Centre 104–107; 106 (my translation and emphasis).

[17]Tahar Ben Jelloun, Dove lo stato non c’è (Turin: Einaudi, 1991) back cover.

[18]Ben Jelloun, “Pietro il matto, Pietro il saggio,” Dove lo stato nonc’è 177–189; 183 (my translation).

[19]Ben Jelloun, “Pietro il matto” (my translation).

[20]Ben Jelloun, “Pietro il matto” 185 (my translation).

[21]Ben Jelloun, “Pietro il matto” 184–185 (my translation).

[22]Ben Jelloun makes this point particularly clear in the tale “Villa Literno,” which tells the story, based on a real event, of the murder of South African immigrant Jerry Masslo.

[23]Christiana de Caldas Brito, “Lo zaino della saudade,” AA.VV. Memorie in valigia (Santarcangelo di Romagna: Fara, 1997) 11–14; 11 (my translation).

[24]Graziella Parati, “Interview with Shirin Ramzanali Fazel,” Margins at the Centre 108–114; 114 (my translation).

[25]Shirin Ramzanali Fazel, Lontano da Mogadiscio (Rome: Datanews, 1994) 63 (my translation).