Home, Memory and Belonging in Italian Postcolonial Literature

This book examines the meaning of home through the investigation of a series of public and private spaces recurrent in Italian postcolonial literature. The chapters, by respectively considering Termini train station in Rome, phone centres, the condominium, and the private spaces of the bathroom and the bedroom, investigate how migrant characters inhabit those places and turn them into familiar spaces of belonging. Home, Memory and Belonging in Italian Postcolonial Literature suggests home spaces as a possible lens to examine these specific places and a series of practices enacted by their inhabitants in order to feel at home. Drawing on a wide array of sources, this book focuses on the role played by memory in creating transnational connections between present and past locations and on how these connections shape migrants' sense of self and migrants' identity.

Examines the ways in which migrant characters use space in order to establish new forms of belonging in Italian postcolonial society Suggests a new understanding of the idea of home in the context of migration, which allows for the creation of multiple home spaces Explores a wide range of literary and journalistic sources to analyse a series of public and private spaces used by migrants in Italy

Auteur

Chiara Giuliani is a Lecturer in Italian Studies at University College Cork, Ireland. She researches different aspects of postcolonial literature, questions of home and identity, as well as the cultural representation of the Chinese community in Italy. She has published widely on these topics in different academic journals and books.

Contenu
Chapter 1. Spaces of memory, spaces of belonging: home in postcolonial Italy.- Chapter 2. Termini Train Station: a Place to Arrive, a Place to Leave and to Live.- Chapter 3. The Phone Centre, a Place to Call Home.- Chapter 4. Spaces of Residence and Transnational Microcosms in Postcolonial Italy.- Chapter 5. Rooms as homes: the bathroom and the bedroom as memory containers.- Chapter 6. Conclusion - At home, everywhere.