This volume is intended as complementary to Mediterranean Crossroads:
Migration Literature in Italy that traced the changes in literature
written by migrants in Italy from 1990 to the end of that decade. The
short stories and excerpts from novels included in that volume
concentrated on very specific themes such as exile, displacement,
cultural fragmentation, otherness, racism, and other concerns that are
characteristic of the writings of a first generation migrants. The goal
of this new collection is to provide both scholars and students of
global migrations with further examples of the wealth of literary
material created by migrants to Italy. These migrants come from a vast
number of countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, South America, and
the Middle East. The authors included here are not intended to reflect
demographic percentages, but rather a cross-section and sampling of the
current literary production. The texts included in this new volume
demonstrate that not only has the number of published texts by migrant
writers multiplied in just a few short years, but that the level of
sophistication in the writings has also markedly increased. The topics
discussed vary widely from text to text, and the most recognizable
differences between these texts and those included in Mediterranean
Crossroads is the widespread use of humor in the newer writings, even in
discussions of painful situations of isolation and racism. Some authors,
such as Christiana de Caldas Brito, Tahar Lamri, and Yousef Wakkas, were
included in Mediterranean Crossroads. Their works here illustrate the
changes in what might have earlier been classified as Italophone
literature. Other authors in this volume.com plicate any simplistic
notions of what migration literature in Italian is, and what Italian
literature itself is. This directly challenges traditional discourses
regarding national literatures, and demonstrates that migration
literature in Italy is no passing phenomenon: it is here to stay.
Migration litera
