Home, Memory and Belonging in Italian Postcolonial Literature

by Chiara Giuliani

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030750657
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	08/27/2021
Edition description:	1st ed. 2021
Pages:	186
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

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.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

This lucid and finely crafted book explores how migration has made ‘home’ a constantly evolving concept and how practices of home-making can extend through memory and imagination to include spaces as diverse as the call centre and the train station. Providing detailed new readings of a range of postcolonial texts in Italian, this book will be essential reading for all scholars and students who engage with cultural representations of migration. (Emma Bond, Reader, University of St Andrews, Scotland)

This is an inspirational book that provides a compelling analysis of how migration literature negotiates and reconceives notions of home. Giuliani brilliantly explores how domestic and public spaces are reconfigured in postcolonial literature, allowing us to grasp the complexity of the lived experiences of migrants. Giuliani’s engaging work offers an innovative perspective on migration culture; an essential reading for anyone interested in Postcolonial, Memory and Space Studies. (Simone Brioni, Associate Professor, Stony Brook University, USA)