I Witnessing and the Renegotiation of Traumatic Memory in Contemporary

Witnessing and the Renegotiation of Traumatic Memory in Contemporary

Italian Literature

Joshua Carter

ORCID ID: 0000-0003-1472-0466

Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of

the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

1 May 2018

School of Languages and Linguistics

The University of Melbourne

Abstract

This thesis is the first to draw on witnessing theories explore the renegotiation of traumatic memory in a representative corpus of recent Italian trauma novels. The novels I have selected for this study are Regina di fiori e di perle (2007) by Gabriella Ghermandi, Oltre Babilonia

(2008) by Igiaba Scego, and Timira: romanzo meticcio (2012) by Antar Mohamed and Wu

Ming 2. These works variously narrate the intergenerational traumas caused by Italian colonisation, dictatorship, and civil war in Somalia and Ethiopia. Intergenerational trauma denotes a collective emotional and psychological injury that goes unresolved across multiple generations. In particular, these works more than any other Italian novels expose readers to the traumatic events of colonialism, dictatorship, and civil war, and the way these events are expressed through symptoms of unresolved trauma. As indicated in the trauma novels considered in this project, the victims of Italian colonialism do not have the opportunity to heal, and for this reason they pass the symptoms of their trauma on to successive generations. In their role as either trauma victims or empathetic listeners, characters resort to witnessing. In all three trauma novels characters turn to witnessing either as trauma victims or as empathetic listeners. Witnessing refers to Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub’s work on trauma, according to which a trauma victim requires the presence of an empathetic listener to recall and narrate their trauma.

My analysis of the selected trauma novels reveals witnessing occurring on three levels. First, the act of witnessing occurs between traumatised protagonists and characters who act as their empathetic listeners. Witnessing enables characters/listeners to gain new insight into their colonial past by briefly inhabiting the perspective of the trauma victim, a process I refer to as renegotiation. Second, witnessing also occurs at the level of writing: see for instance the collaborative writing process adopted by co-authors Wu Ming 2 and Antar Mohamed.

Ghermandi, instead, wrote Regina di fiori e di perle so that the protagonist Mahlet realises her identity as the spokesperson for her community by acting as an empathetic listener to the victims of Italian colonialism. Third, witnessing is encouraged at the level of reading. By examining the stylistic strategies employed by authors in their texts, I show how Italian readers are invited to act as empathetic listeners themselves.

iii

Declaration

This is to certify that:

i. This thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD,

ii. Due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used,

iii. This thesis is fewer than 100 000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps,

bibliographies and appendices.

Signed:

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Andrea Rizzi for doggedly pursuing me and always challenging me intellectually to broaden my ideas, and Dr Gregoria Manzin for her incredible kindness, patience, and vast knowledge of my topic. I also wish to thank Associate Professor

Stephen Kolsky, who gave me a gentle nudge in the right direction on occasion, my close friends Anna (the wind beneath my wings), and Sam for our almost daily coffee dates over the years. I would also like the express my deep gratitude to the assessors for their encouraging and extensive feedback. I am grateful to Françoise Campbell for generously agreeing to translate an article from French into English, and I would like the express my gratitude to my mother for her unwavering support and encouragement. I would like to thank the Australasian

Centre of Italian Studies (ACIS) for providing me with incredible opportunities to present my work at a domestic and international level. Finally, I would like to thank the Italian program and the School of Languages and Linguistics, as well as the University of Melbourne, which generously awarded me an Australian Government Research and Training Program

Scholarship, without which my study would not have been possible.

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii Declaration ...... iv Acknowledgements ...... v Table of Contents ...... vi Chapter 1- Introductory Chapter ...... 1 Selected authors and their texts ...... 6 Igiaba Scego ...... 6 Gabriella Ghermandi ...... 8 Antar Mohamed and Wu Ming 2 ...... 10 Literature Review ...... 12 From letteratura della migrazione to trauma novels ...... 12 What now? Scholarship abandons letteratura della migrazione ...... 20 Trauma novels in Italian Literature ...... 30 Trauma novels: Distinct features ...... 36 Methodology ...... 42 Witnessing ...... 42 Testimony ...... 46 Chapter 2- The Italian colonial experience in literature ...... 52 Colonial memory in literature: A revival ...... 53 The lack of a process of decolonisation ...... 55 Post-imperialist literature ...... 59 Giallo coloniale: Colonialism in Italian crime fiction ...... 65 Science Fiction ...... 70 Trauma novels ...... 73 Settler literature ...... 76 Chapter 3 - Intergenerational Trauma ...... 87 Intergenerational trauma in literature ...... 88 The transmission of intergenerational trauma ...... 90 Intergenerational trauma in the selected texts ...... 93 Intergenerational trauma as cultural bereavement ...... 94 Intergenerational trauma, miscegenation and anxiety around cultural identity ...... 105

Motherhood, identity and trauma ...... 112 Intergenerational trauma as abandonment and neglect ...... 119 Absent fathers, troubled mothers ...... 123 Chapter 4 - Witnessing ...... 131 Witnessing ...... 132 Translating trauma ...... 134 The vicissitudes of translation: the case of Woizero Bekelech ...... 136 Inner murmurings: Mahlet’s recovery and the birth of a cantora ...... 144 ‘Una repubblica senza memoria’: Isabella’s quest for memory and identity ...... 150 Co-authorship as witnessing in Timira ...... 157 A cassette of broken dreams: witnessing in Oltre Babilonia ...... 161 Chapter 5 - Reading Trauma ...... 170 Trauma novels and testimonial writing ...... 171 Reading and witnessing in Italian ...... 172 Reading trauma ...... 175 Affect and the embodied reading of trauma ...... 178 Strategies for the transmission of trauma ...... 181 La vostra storia: positioning the reader as a witness to trauma ...... 182 Ghostly revenants: photography and witnessing ...... 189 Reading between the lines: The circuit of witnessing in Oltre Babilonia ...... 196 Chapter Six – Conclusion ...... 206 Future Research ...... 215 Bibliography ...... 219

vii

Chapter 1- Introductory Chapter

Mentre il libro di storia può suscitare sospetti di faziosità ed esssere quindi respinto, l’opera narrativa può contenere un messaggio più facilmente assimilabile e svolgere un’azione propedeutica, colmare lacune e sanare ingiustizie. Anche questo modo di fare storia, attraverso il romanzo, può riconciliarci con la ‘nostra Africa’ che attende da noi non soltanto sospiri di nostalgia, ma anche l’ammissione, se pur tardiva, dei nostri torti (Del Boca 2003, 43).

In his introduction to La nostra Africa. Nel racconto di cinquanta italiani che l’hanno percorsa, esplorata e amata (2003), Angelo Del Boca highlights the role that literature can play in challenging, dismantling, and renegotiating Italy’s colonial legacy in Africa. For Del Boca, literature can help the Italian public to understand their country’s violent occupation of the

African countries of Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Libya. Literature can present Italian readers with vivid, richly detailed depictions of the former colonies told from the perspective of characters who suffered from the crimes committed in the name of colonialism. While the

Italian Empire has often been described as small and short-lived (Labanca 2015, 120), colonial memory is reemerging in contemporary Italian literature and culture. Alessandro Triulzi defines colonial memory as “a sort of ‘pendulum’ oscillating between an all-out desire to forget and the nostalgic recollection of a past which is selectively remembered and re-enacted” (2006,

430). While Italy’s post-war decades may have been characterised by a desire to forget colonialism (Triulzi 2006, 432), the pendulum has swung back in favour of a selective recollection of the colonial past that omits disturbing and uncomfortable events. Colonial memory has emerged in response to the influx of migrants from Africa to the Italian peninsula since the 1990s (Labanca 2015, 132). As a gateway to Europe for many migrants, Italy finds itself at the epicenter of a divisive debate over migration (Triulzi 2006, 433). Colonial memory and its selective remembrance of the past offers a means of fortifying a national identity feared to be buckling under the strain of mass migration. Colonial memory is accessed “like a back- up file” (Triulzi 2006, 433) by the Italian public at times of cultural and political crisis when

national identity is perceived to be at risk (Triulzi 2006, 433). The allure of imperial grandeur beckons as a means of restoring national pride in an era of globalisation and multiculturalism:

“Old representations of national glory and prestige help sustain the national sense of belonging and make Italians feel they are part of a nation endowed with a civilized and progressive imperial past” (Triulzi 2006, 435). Rosetta Giuliana Caponetto has also commented on “the artificiality of colonial memory that resurfaces in moments of societal crisis and nostalgically recovers only reassuring facts and individuals, turning colonial history into a kind of fantasy”

(2015, 16). Like Triulzi, Caponetto argues that colonial memory presents a distorted recollection of the colonial past that deliberately glosses over the violence perpetrated by the

Italian colonial regime in Africa.

The emergence of colonial memory can be explained by the Italian public’s reluctance to engage with the trauma of their colonial past. Francesca Locatelli argues that “Italian institutions and the ruling classes of the post-war period [oversaw] (…) the creation of myths around the ‘modernizing’ effects of Italian colonial projects overseas and the endorsement of misleading interpretations about the very nature of Italian colonialism” (2015, 145). These myths commemorate Italians as the bearers of civilisation and modernity (Triulzi 2006, 433), ignoring or playing down the gruesome underbelly of colonialism that left an indelible mark on the inhabitants of Africa. There has been an “amplification of myths around Italian colonialism in more recent years” (Locatelli 2016, 145) in response to migratory influx from

Africa. This is evidenced by the decision in 2012 of the right-wing town council of Affile to erect a monument commemorating General Rodolfo Graziani – the so-called “butcher of

Ethiopia” (Morone 2012, 25). Affile is a small Italian town in the region of Lazio, east of Rome.

Despite his use of abhorrent tactics such as “massacres, torture, execution and the use of banned chemical weapons” (Morone 2012, 25), in his military campaigns in the former colonies of

Libya and Ethiopia Graziani was to be remembered for his “everyday acts to the benefit of the fatherland” (Morrone 2012, 25). Notwithstanding the distorted recollection of the past sustained by colonial memory the unresolved trauma caused by the Italian occupation of Africa has in many ways come full-circle. Trauma has made its way back to Italy through successive generations of Somalis, Ethiopians, Eritreans and Libyans who have migrated to Italy, exposing the Italian public to the invisible threads of a bygone empire that still link Italy to

Africa.

Following Del Boca, I investigate how literature can play a pivotal role in recasting the relationship between Italy and its former colonies by foregrounding the traumatic histories of the former colonies that may be unfamiliar to Italian readers and public opinion. I have selected three texts for my analysis: Regina di fiori e di perle (2007) by Gabriella Ghermandi, Oltre

Babilonia (2008) by Igiaba Scego, and Timira: romanzo meticcio (2012) co-authored by Wu

Ming 2 and Antar Mohamed. My selection of texts has been motivated by the specific type of trauma they depict, namely intergenerational trauma that originated in the former Italian colonies and travelled to Italy over generations. The texts I have chosen for my study variously narrate the effects of colonial and postcolonial events in Somalia and Ethiopia across different generations. They narrate the collective emotional and psychological injury that goes unresolved across multiple generations (Atkinson, Nelson & Atkinson 2010, 138). Trauma has ricocheted from one generation to the next, with its effects growing over time. The trauma novels I have chosen are particularly effective in challenging colonial memory through their depiction of intergenerational trauma. My thesis demonstrates that characters who bear witness to the adverse effects of intergenerational trauma in the selected texts arrive at a new understanding of the colonial past from the perspective of trauma victims, a process I refer to as renegotiation. I go on to demonstrate that these texts, more than any others, empower Italian

readers to act as witnesses to colonial and postcolonial traumas. In doing so, Italian readers are called upon to acknowledge unresolved, intergenerational trauma.

I chose to use the terms trauma novel that I have imported from the field of trauma studies. By using the terms ‘trauma novel’ I am not attempting to categorise the authors of the selected texts. Instead, I aim to describe the texts themselves, based on what I consider to be their defining feature of intergenerational trauma. My use of the terms trauma novels does not discount the familial histories of the selected authors. The biographies of the authors’ have undoubtedly informed their writing. As I illustrate in the following section, the authors of the three narrative works that I selected for my analysis have ancestral ties to the former Italian colonies of Somalia and Ethiopia. Gabriella Ghermandi and Antar Mohamed migrated to Italy from Ethiopia and Somalia respectively (Clò 2009, 141; Enciclopedia de estudios

Afroeuropeos 2011). Igiaba Scego was born in Rome to Somali parents (Brioni 2016). I explain in the following section that she frequently explores the history of Italian colonialism in her parents’ country through her writing. Drawing on interviews with the selected authors and their non-fiction, I will illustrate that the authors’ motivation for writing the selected texts can be attributed to their conviction that the Italian public has not recognised the unresolved trauma in the histories of the former colonies of Somalia and Ethiopia in chapter five. The authors have gained a firsthand knowledge of the traumatic histories of the former colonies through their ancestral connection to Somalia and Ethiopia.

I have decided to focus on the specific type of trauma narrated in the selected texts to navigate the plurality of terms that have emerged to describe the selected authors and their works. Due to their backgrounds, all three authors were initially associated with the genre of letteratura della migrazione (Coppola 2011, 124; Carroli & Gerrand 2014). A genre that describes any

author whose grandparents, parents or themselves migrated to Italy and is not only concerned with writers who are descendant from the former Italian colonies. Since the mid-2000s

(Merolla & Ponzanesi 2005, 4; Parati 2005, 7; Carroli & Gerrand 2014, 207) the term letteratura della migrazione has been increasingly viewed as inadequate to describe authors whose families or themselves had migrated to Italy. It is for this reason that scholars have gradually refrained from using letteratura della migrazione and put forward several alternatives as possible replacements. Graziella Parati has proposed the term italophone texts

(2005), others have gravitated towards transnational or global literature (Sinopoli 2013;

Benvenuti & Cesarani 2012; Morace 2012), while others advocate for a postcolonial approach, arguing that postcolonialism remains underutilised in Italian studies (Ponzanesi 2012, 59; Lori

2013, 7). I am able to build on prior research in the field of Italian literary studies by focusing on the specific strategies authors have used to represent and convey intergenerational trauma.

While scholars have acknowledged the presence of trauma in the selected texts (Carroli &

Gerrand 2014) or even made it the focus of their research (Manzin 2014) their analysis has never conceptualised these texts as dealing with a specific type of trauma. Trauma has primarily been analysed through nomadism (Carroli & Gerrand 2014) or transnationalism (Clò 2010).

Chapter one serves to contextualise the selected texts within current scholarly debates over the terminology employed to describe the selected authors and their texts. In chapter two, I will provide an overview of the various genres in Italian literature that have narrated the Italian colonial experience. This overview serves to highlight the specific function of the trauma novels I have selected to share intergenerational trauma with Italian readers. In chapter three I will illustrate that the victims of colonisation have never had the opportunity to adequately heal and have passed on the unresolved symptoms of their trauma to their descendants, who, in turn, have been exposed to the violence and brutality that has characterised the recent histories of

Somalia and Ethiopia. Chapter four will focus on witnessing that takes place between traumatised protagonists and various characters who act as empathetic listeners in the selected texts. In the context of this research, witnessing refers to Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub’s psychoanalytic theory whereby a victim recalls and narrates their traumatic memory to an interlocutor who assumes the role of an empathetic listener. Witnessing allows the listener to briefly relive the victim’s trauma (Felman & Laub 2013, 57). I refer to the narrative account of trauma that emerges from the act of witnessing as testimony. I discuss the concept of testimony and testimonial writing later in the methodology section of this chapter, given that testimony and witnessing are interdependent concepts. Chapter four will also examine how witnessing impacted on the collaborative writing process between Wu Ming 2 and Mohamed in Timira: romanzo meticcio and informed the construction of Regina di fiori e di perle. Chapter five will go on to examine witnessing at the level of reading by analysing the attempt of the selected authors to engender a specific kind of reading akin to witnessing. As I outline in the section on methodology, all three works contain literary devices and stylistic features that enable this type of reading to occur, providing readers with the opportunity to experience intergenerational trauma. Chapter six will conclude by examining future directions of Italian literary studies and the affective dynamics that underpin remembering Italian colonialism.

Selected authors and their texts

Igiaba Scego

Igiaba Scego was born to Somali parents in Rome in 1974. Alongside her literary career, Scego is a journalist and activist and regularly contributes to various publications on topics like immigration, postcolonialism, and cultural diversity in contemporary Italy (Hawthorne 2015).

Her oeuvre encompasses numerous short stories including Salsicce (2003), which won her the

Eks&tra prize and gained her the attention of scholars of contemporary Italian literature; a

children’s book, La nomade che amava Alfred Hitchock (2003); three novels, Rhoda (2004),

Oltre Babilonia (2008) and Adua (2015); an autobiography La mia casa è dove sono (2010); a monograph on the colonial landmarks of Rome co-authored with photographer Rino Bianchi,

Roma negata: percorsi postcoloniali nella città (2014); and a study of Brazilian composer

Caetano Veloso – Caetano veloso: cammindano controvento (2016). She has also edited two collections, Italiani per vocazione (2005) and Quando nasci è una roulette: giovani figli di migrante si raccontano (2007) in collaboration with Ingy Mubiayi. Her second novel, Oltre

Babilonia, which I chose to include in the corpus of primary literature analysed in this thesis, is a polyphonic text that chronicles the effects of trauma across multiple generations. The text follows the lives of two sets of mother and daughter connected via their relationship to an absent husband and father, Elias. The author seemingly weaves together the disparate lives of two women, Maryam and Miranda, who have both escaped to Italy from their respective countries Somalia and Argentina and are now both unknowingly raising their daughters from the same man, Elias. The author portrays individual trauma as the result of a deeper historical and collective crisis stemming from the violence perpetrated against Elias’s parents Famey and

Majid in colonial Somalia. This crisis impacts upon Elias’s ability to be a father and he abandons Maryam and Miranda, leaving them to care for his children alone. The two women are both trying to cope with the traumatic histories of their families and countries that they left behind. Maryam escaped the dictatorship of Siad Barre and the bloody civil war in Somalia;

Miranda the military junta that claimed the life of her brother Ernesto in Argentina. Miranda’s tormented upbringing in Argentina adds another layer of trauma to Elias’s tortured familial history. Miranda’s inability to fully reconcile with her past impacts upon her relationship with her daughter, Mar. The same can be said of Maryam, who is too consumed by her grief to properly care for her daughter, Zuhra. Yet, neither daughter is without their own personal tribulations. Zuhra is left emotionally scarred from the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands

of her high school janitor, Aldo. Meanwhile, Mar is battling her own demons having been pressured into an abortion by her lover Patricia who later committed suicide.

All five protagonists (Elias, Maryam, Miranda, Zuhra and Mar) engage in witnessing either as trauma victims or empathetic listeners. Taken together their testimonies create the mosaic of a tortured family history that spans across continents and generations encompassing the traumas of colonisation, authoritarianism, and civil war. Over the course of the book, the reader begins to piece the fragmented testimonies together to fully comprehend the interdependency of these characters’ tragic lives. Elias and Maryam are recording their respective testimonies onto cassette for their daughter Zuhra, who has grown up in Italy knowing little of her parents’ murky past in Somalia. The testimony of Elias also encapsulates the trauma of his parents

Famey and Majid. At the same time, Zuhra is an avid reader of the Argentine poet Miranda who has risen to fame in Italy chronicling the plight of the desaparecidos, like her deceased brother Ernesto. The desaparecidos were those individuals that went missing under the military junta in Argentina. Miranda’s poetry teaches Zuhra to comprehend her own pain through writing. Zuhra begins to transcribe the memories of her abuse at the hands of Aldo into red notebooks. Unbeknown to Zuhra, Miranda’s compulsion to write about the plight of the desaparecidos has distracted her from the woes of her daughter Mar. It is Zuhra who, having begun to address her own trauma through writing, becomes a beacon of hope and fortitude, instilling in Mar the courage to confront her own past.

Gabriella Ghermandi

Gabriella Ghermandi was born in Ethiopia in 1965 to an Italian father and Ethiopian mother

(Clò 2009, 141). She moved to Italy permanently in 1979. Like Scego, Ghermandi was the recipient of the Eks&tra prize in 1999 for her short story ‘Il telefono del quartiere’. To date

Ghermandi has only written one novel, Regina di fiori e di perle (2007) as well as a number of

short stories, such as ‘Un canto per mamma Heaven’ (2005) and ‘Il pranzo pasquale’ (2006).

Ghermandi has gone on to pursue a career in theatre and music, forming the musical group the

Atse Tewodros Project in 2010. In both her writing and performances Ghermandi uses the

Ethiopian tradition of storytelling (Clò 2009, 146). Like her texts, Ghermandi’s performances largely focus on the Italian occupation of Ethiopia and the heroism of local resistance fighters

(Clò 2009, 147). In Regina di fiori e di perle readers gain access to Ethiopia’s colonial as well as postcolonial history through the protagonist Mahlet, who is chosen to be a cantora – the equivalent of an Ethiopian bard (Manzin 2011, 114) by her beloved elder Yacob. Yacob makes

Mahlet promise to be the mouthpiece for her community and remind an Italian audience of imperialism’s role in the turbulent history of Ethiopia. As Gregoria Manzin highlights, the figure of the cantora is ostensibly a “literary device” (2011, 115) that allows Ghermandi to narrate the trauma of the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, the subsequent years of terror under the authoritarian Derg regime and the dictatorship of Mengistu Hailè Mariam to an Italian audience. Unfortunately, growing up under the Derg, Mahlet forgets about her promise. When

Yacob dies while Mahlet is studying in Bologna, the protagonist is inconsolable. She returns to Ethiopia to mourn his loss. She is taken under the wing of hermit Abba Chereka who instructs her to pray at the monastery of Giorgis. At the monastery, numerous characters approach Mahlet eager to share their testimony of life under Italian colonialism and beseech her to transcribe them into Italian (Ghermandi 2007, 67). By witnessing these accounts of trauma Mahlet’s own painful story of growing up under the Derg surfaces and becomes fused with the stories she has collected from others. These stories she is exposed to eventually help

Mahlet to realise her vocation as a cantora and she is encouraged to “scrivere tutte le storie che hai ascoltato” (Ghermandi 2007, 292) along with her own. I interpret this emphasis on writing in Italian as an invitation from the author to an Italian readership to experience trauma from an

Ethiopian point of view through a type of reading akin to witnessing. Ghermandi creates the

character of Mahlet, who has been raised in Ethiopia and educated in Italy, to reconcile the two cultures. As a figure of “mediation” (Manzin 2011, 117) Mahlet provides Italian readers with a portal into a sorrowful chapter of Ethiopian history that may have otherwise remained impenetrable to them.

Antar Mohamed and Wu Ming 2

Timira: romanzo meticcio has remained relatively under theorised in recent scholarship due to its more recent release in 2012. Timira follows the incredible life of Isabella Marincola who was born in colonial Mogadishu in 1925 to an Italian soldier and a local woman. At the tender age of two she and her brother Giorgio were taken away from their biological mother to be raised in Rome with their father and his family. Marincola later returned to Somalia to reunite with her birthmother and remained there until the outbreak of civil war in 1991. She was forced to return to Italy effectively as a refugee and spent the remainder of her time trying to prove her citizenship to receive the annuities to which she was entitled.

The text was co-authored by Antar Mohamed, an Italo-Somali writer and son of protagonist

Isabella Marincola, and Wu Ming 2, a professional author who forms part of the Wu Ming collective. The Wu Ming collective refers to a group of five authors who publish under the same pseudonym Wu Ming meaning ‘anonymous’ in Chinese. The collective began in 2000 as the successor to the Luther Blissett project founded circa 1994. Luther Blissett was a pseudonym available to anyone who wished to publish under the alias. Wu Ming is underpinned by the same ideology of authorial anonymity but is limited to five authors.

Together with the other members of the collective, Wu Ming 2 has published numerous texts including Asce di guerra (2000), 54 (2002), Manituana (2007), and Altai (2009). Individually,

Wu Ming 2 has published Guerra agli umani (2003) and Il sentiero degli dei (2010). By comparison Mohamed has only previously published one short story ‘L’uomo dal sonno

leggero’ (2011). The collaboration between the two writers began after Marincola’s death in

2010. Initially, Wu Ming 2 recorded a series of interviews with Marincola with the intention of transforming them into a text. Marincola died before the text was completed, prompting

Mohamed to intervene to protect his mother’s legacy. In chapter four, I will contrast the model of egalitarian co-authorship developed by Wu Ming 2 and Mohamed with earlier collaborations between professional Italian writers and authors with migrant backgrounds. I provide examples of these earlier collaborations in my discussion of migrant literature later in the chapter. I consider these earlier collaborations as unsuccessful in countering the cultural asymmetry inherent in partnerships of this nature. I illustrate how Mohamed and Wu Ming 2 attempted to overcome this asymmetry by engaging in witnessing.

Timira: romanzo meticcio is markedly different from the other two texts given its hybridity in terms of genre. While the other two texts can be considered as novels, Timira is a composite of fiction, archival material, photos and personal letters. The text’s hybridity is nowhere more evident than in its depiction of the protagonist’s brother Giorgio Marincola who, as explained in chapter three of this thesis, lost his life in a skirmish with Nazi and fascist troops in Northern

Italy. Giorgio’s status as a black resistance fighter has made him a figure of historical interest and he has been the subject of Carlo Costa and Lorenzo Teodino’s biography Razza partigiana:

Storia di Giorgio Marincola (1923-1945). Giorgio also features in prominent resistant fighter and antifascist Edgardo Sogno’s biography Guerra senza bandiera (1955). Timira: romanzo meticcio relies on a mixture of fiction and biography to imaginatively reconstruct Giorgio’s life leading up to his death in the Second World War from Isabella’s point of view. It then chronicles the torment she underwent losing him. This depiction of Giorgio illustrates the complex overlap of genres in the text. Archival material, photographs, and letters are embedded in the fictional narrative. Readers are confronted by vestiges of the past like archival

photographs that corroborate the protagonist’s testimony and convey its emotional resonance.

This documentary evidence, which I refer to as forensic material, addresses the reader directly, offering them a portal into the victim’s suffering. The use of forensic material in Timira indicates the variety of strategies employed by the authors to engage readers and immerse them in the traumatic histories of the former colonies.

In the following section I examine the use of the terms letteratura della migrazione. This is because prior scholarship has been informed by the authors’ affiliation with the genre. Despite my objection to the terminology, I use the term migrant literature as a synonym for letteratura della migrazione and the term migrant writer as a synonym of scrittore migrante throughout this chapter. This terminology allows me to situate the selected works within a historical period of mass migration to Italy and the scholarly debates on literature. For this reason, I adopt the language that was used to describe authors when they were first published. I then turn my attention to the broader theoretical debates in Italian literary studies over the categorisation of texts written by authors whose forebears or themselves migrated to Italy. I agree that the term letteratura della migrazione is now reductive, inadequate, and the term should be discarded

(Merolla & Ponzanesi 2005, 4; Parati 2005, 7; Carroli & Gerrand 2014, 207). I move on to survey the terms scholars have put forward to replace letteratura della migrazione before explaining my adoption of the terms trauma novels.

Literature Review

From letteratura della migrazione to trauma novels

Migrant literature became a genre in Italian literature in the early 1990s when Armando Gnisci developed the notion of a letteratura della migrazione. Gnisci’s term initially gained attention from the Italian academy under the discipline of cultural studies rather than literary criticism

(Lombardi-Diop 2005, 219). The so called ‘first-wave’ or first generation of migrant writers refers to those authors who immigrated to Italy around the late 1980s and published in the early 1990s. From this point on I will refer to authors who belong to this initial cohort of writers that published around the 1990s as G1, meaning first generation. Many of the texts published by G1 authors were largely autobiographical. Authors wrote about the sense of sorrow they felt leaving behind their country of origin, their sense of dislocation in a new country and the difficulties of integrating into Italian society. Jennifer Burns states that many of the earlier migrant texts, such as Shirin Ramzanali Fazel’s Lontano da Mogadiscio (1994) and Nassera Chlora’s Volevo diventare bianca (1993), written with Alessandra Atti di Sarro closely resembled diaries, chronicling the daily struggles that accompanied migration (2007,

140)1. These predominantly autobiographical texts typically followed an established narrative of the journey made to Italy from the author’s country of origin (Coppola 2011, 125). In response to the steady emergence of novels being produced, scholars began to use the texts as a lens through which to analyse the underlying tensions and anxieties of multiculturalism in contemporary Italy (Di Maio 2012, 93). These authors occupied a liminal space in being both accepted by the Italian literary establishment while concurrently being excluded from it (Parati

2005, 64). While they were valorised for the insight their texts provided into the demographic and cultural changes occurring inside of Italy, these authors were not considered to be

1 Several 1990s texts grouped under letteratura della migrazione were published in bilingual editions with Italian text accompanied by a version in the author’s native language. These include Ribka Sibhatu’s children’s book Aulò: Canto-poesia dall’Eritrea. Rome: Sinnos, 1993, published in Italian and Tigrinya; Maria de Lourdes Jesus autobiographical text Racordai, Vengo da un’isola di Capo Verde. Rome: Sinnos, 1996, published in Italian and Portuguese; and Gezim Hajdari’s collection of poems Ombra di cane/Hije qeni. Frosinone: Dismisuratesti, 1993; and Sassi controvento/Gure kundereres. Milan: Laboratiorio delle Arti, 1995, published in Italian and Albanian. Other early migrant texts, that were not published in bilingual editions, include Maria Abbebù Viarengo’s autobiography Scirscir ‘n demna (1990), which the author refused to publish in its entirety after the Italian journal Linea d’ombra translated the title to ‘Andiamo a spasso?’ without the author’s consent (Ponzanesi 2000, 17). Excerpts can be found in Linea: D’ombra 54:75 (1990): 74-76; Ron Kubati’s Venti di Libertà e Gemiti di Dolore. Ed. Brucoli, R. Bari: Edizioni Insieme, 1991; Mohsen Melitti’s I bambini delle rose. Rome: Edizioni lavoro, 1995. (Melitti’s first book Pantanella: Canto Lungo per la strada.Trans. Ruotto, M. Rome: Edizioni lavoro, 1992, was translated from Arabic into Italian by Monica Ruotto); Christiana de Caldas Brito’s collection of short stories Amanda Olinda Azzurra e le altre. Rome: Lilith edizioni, 1998; Younis Tawfik’s La straniera. Milan: Bompiani, 1999; and Amara Lakhous’s Le cimici e il pirata. Rome: Arlem. 1999.

especially talented or capable of producing sophisticated works of literature. Parati highlights that for the first generation of authors the impetus for writing developed from a need to be recognised by Italian society, and this took precedence over the literary quality of the texts.

She states that “per diventare visibili, gli autori (...) hanno dovuto diventare testi. Tale azione ha consentito loro di farsi conoscere, di acquisire identità individuali, di esistere come ‘altri’ parzialmente conoscibili per il pubblico dei lettori” (1997, 186). Parati’s observation suggests that G1 writers may have compromised their artistic freedom for the sake of being published.

Parati notes that the act of “becoming public” (1997, 135) lead many G1 writers to collaborate with Italian authors and journalists to publish their work. Along with Volevo diventare bianca written by Chlora and Atti di Sarro these texts included Immigrato (1990) written by Salah

Methnani and Mario Fortunato, Io, venditore di elefanti (1990) written by Pap Khouma and

Oreste Pivetta, Chiamatemi Alì (1991) written by Mohamed Bouchane and edited by Carla De

Girolamo and Daniele Miccione, and La promessa di Hamadi (1991) written by Saido Moussa

Ba and Alessandro Micheletti2. Italian writers took it upon themselves to transform the accounts of migration presented by their co-authors into texts for an Italian speaking readership. Immigrato is a first-person account of the journey of a young man, Salah, who travels from Tunisia to Italy. Each chapter of the book represents another step in his journey, which ultimately ends as it began back in Tunisia (Di Maio 2012, 95). The text originated from a series of interviews over several months between Tunisian born Methnani and Italian writer

Mario Fortunato, who then transformed these conversations into a text (Burns 2003, 205). Io venditore di elefanti tells a similar tale of the hardship endured by Senegalese born Pap

Khouma who made the perilous voyage to Italy as an illegal immigrant. The book is a

2 These authors form part of the initial cohort of writers I refer to as G1. I do not consider them to be any less talented than their peers who published without the assistance of an Italian co-author.

collaboration between Khouma and Italian journalist and literary critic Oreste Pivetta. Pivetta pursued Khouma “per farsi dare una storia sulla quale potessero insieme costruire un dichiarazione politica” (Burns 2003, 207). Chiamatemi Alì is the autobiographical narrative of co-author Mohamed Bouchane who travelled from Morocco to Milan in search of a better life.

Bouchane translated his diary from his native Arabic into Italian for co-authors Carla De

Girolamo and Daniele Miccione, who then made editorial changes which they negotiated with the Leonardo publishers (Burns 2003, 203; Di Maio 2012, 90). There are no details readily available of the arrangements made by Saidou Moussa Ba and Alessandro Micheletti about their collaboration on La promessa di Hamadi, a semi-autobiographical story of two brothers who migrate to Italy. Nor are there details readily available about the arrangements made by

Nassera Chlora and Alessandra Atti di Sarro about their collaboration on Voleva diventare bianca - the autobiography of a first-generation French woman of Algerian descent who migrated to Italy. It is worth mentioning that Chlora was reportedly put off writing by the experience and did not pursue a career as an author, suggesting that the partnership with Atti di Sarro may have not been an equal one (Burns 2003, 204).

This doubling of authorship has been interpreted as a type of patronage (Burns 2003, 205).

Jennifer Burns discerns that collaborative approaches can be considered as:

Una forma di assistenza: la ben nota scrittrice o editrice locale concede il suo nome ad uno scrittore e ad un testo che hanno bisogno di sostegno. I servizi che offre - rifinitura del tessuto linguistico, rafforzamento della struttura, chiarimenti di natura culturale - forniscono una sorta di impalcatura paratestuale ad un testo che, implicitamente, è troppo debole per reggersi da solo” (2003, 205).

While this form of collaboration was presumably efficacious in promoting migrant writers to a wider readership, scholars have recognised that it largely restricted the creative autonomy of the texts, resulting in “linguistic assimilation, cultural mimicry and, social conformity” (Shohat

1993, 110). Italian journalists and writers who assisted in the writing of these works can in this

instance be interpreted as gatekeepers who guaranteed migrant authors access into the Italian literary space by normalising their texts. Daniele Comberiati has pointed out that the genre of letteratura della migrazione has in the past carried connotations of ‘contamination’ and a

‘sullying’ of the linguistic purity of the Italian language and by extension the literary canon.

Comberiati argues that in the case of migrant literature “la lingua italiana si mescola continuamente con quella originaria e con gli influssi presenti nei vari paesi di provenienza

(...). L’italiano ne risulta modificato e alcune parole perdono il loro senso originario per acquistarne un altro” (2011, 15). Linguistic hybridisation and innovation arguably underwent a degree of censorship by Italian co-authors during the first generation of migrant literature. In early collaborations, the “native speaker functioned as the necessary mediating entity that would ‘correct’ the language and develop the connections with the publishing world” (Parati

2005, 58). While this guaranteed migrant authors access to the Italian literary market, the inflections of their first language were largely filtered out through the editing process. This resulted in an asymmetry in the collaborative process by which the “white scripture stands beside or behind the black narrator to authorize and certify the narrative” (Lombardi-Diop

2005, 225)3. In the past decade, this form of patronage has largely been overcome through a greater recognition of migrant authors’ literary capability and the growth of a second generation (G2) of migrant literature.

The transition from first to second generation migrant writers is indicative of a drastic shift in public and editorial perception of the quality of work being produced. Carroli and Gerrand have observed that “over the past decade, literary production by Italian writers of migrant descent (G2) has grown substantially. Such authors represent the diversity of 21st century Italy

3 Lombardi-Diop uses the descriptor ‘black’ to refer specifically to migrant authors of African descent. This is not to say that migrant authors coming from elsewhere, like Asia or Eastern Europe for instance, have not encountered similar difficulties.

(…), having moved from the country’s demographic and cultural margins towards its centre”

(2014, 205). The second generation (G2) of migrant writers who were born or educated in Italy often had the linguistic and cultural cachet that many of their predecessors lacked. This allowed them to develop more complex and nuanced narratives that ventured beyond autobiography.

Unlike their parents and grandparents, G2 writers are an “anomaly” within the genre of letteratura della migrazione (Russo-Bullaro & Benelli 2014, xviii). G2 authors’ texts do not reiterate established narratives of migration and instead begin to address and deconstruct

“notions of identity, literary canons, and linguistic normativeness” (Coppola 2011, 122) in

Italian society.

Some examples of G2 texts include Igiaba Scego’s Oltre Babilonia (2008), Randa Ghazy’s

Oggi forse non ammazzo nessuno (2007), and Ubax Cristina Ali Farah’s Madre piccola

(2007)4. While Scego could be considered a G2 writer due to her Somali heritage she has been one of the most vocal critics of letteratura della migrazione and has vehemently opposed her affiliation with the genre, arguing that “non esiste nulla come ‘la letteratura della migrazione’, noi afrodiscendenti non siamo un movimento come il decadentismo o il futurismo” (Brioni

4 I have documented above Scego’s career. Farah and Ghazi have published other texts. Farah went on to publish her second novel Il comandante del fiume. Rome: 66thand2nd. 2014, and Ghazy previously wrote Sognando Palestina. Milan: Fabbri, 2002. These authors are joined by Jadelin Mabiala Gangbo who published Verso la notte Bakonga. L’Aquila: Portofranco, 1999, and Rometta e Giulieo. Milan: Feltrinelli, 2001; Gabriella Kuruvilla who published Media Chiara e noccioline. Rome: Derive Approdi, 2001, under the pseudonym Viola Chandra; Sumaya Abdel Qader who wrote Porto il velo, adoro i Queen: Nuove italiane crescono, Milan: Sonzogno editore, 2008; Laila Wadia who published Il burattinaio e altre storie extra-italiane. Isernia: Cosmo Iannone, 2004, Amiche per la pelle. Rome: Edizioni E/O, 2007, Come diventare italiani in 24 ore. Il diario di un’aspirante italiana. Siena: Barbera, 2010, Se tutte le donne. Siena: Barbera, 2012, and edited Mondopentola. Isernia: Cosmo Iannone, 2007 – a collection of stories about food written by migrant writers; and Ingy Mubiayi whose short stories ‘Documenti, prego’ and ‘Concorso’ appear in the anthology by G2 writers Pecore nere. Eds. Capitani, F., & Emanuele Coen. Rome: Laterza, 2012, along with Scego’s, Kuruvilla’s, and Wadia’s. It is not a coincidence that most G2 authors I have mentioned are women. As Carroli and Gerrand highlight “the prevalence of texts by women authors reflects the feminization of migration to Italy, especially from the Nineties. From the end of the 1990’s the feminization of migration movements had its correspondence in this increased presence in Italy of migrant and postcolonial women writers” (2014, 206). Jennifer Burns also attributes the increase in female migrant writers to an increase in female migration to Italy. Burns highlights that the initial wave of migration to Italy in the late 1980s “was characterized by young, single men seeking economic opportunity” (2007, 139), with female migrants following in the 1990s, reversing the previous “gender imbalance” (Burns 2007, 139) in migrant literature.

2013). As I illustrate in the following subsection, scholars have responded accordingly by revaluating Scego’s place within the Italian literary panorama. Despite having grown up in

Ethiopia and Somalia respectively, Gabriella Ghermandi and Antar Mohamed could also be referred to as G2 writers. Neither of them, however, sits neatly within this term. Both

Ghermandi and Mohamed are children of mixed marriages. Ghermandi is the daughter of an

Italian father and meticcia mother (Fabris 2010). Mohamed is the son of a meticcia mother and

Somali father (Enciclopedia de estudios Afroeuropeos 2011). Both writers have Italian as one of their native languages and are acquainted with Italian culture – Ghermandi was educated in

Italian schools in Ethiopia (Fabris 2010) and Mohamed’s mother Isabella Marincola was an

Italian teacher in Somalia (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 425). When they migrated to Italy they already had the linguistic and cultural competency many G1 authors lacked. Unlike G2 authors, such as Scego and Ghazy who were born and raised in Italy, Ghermandi and

Mohamed’s linguistic and cultural proficiency was gained outside of the country. The fact that the term migrant is unable to accommodate writers like Ghermandi and Mohamed merely reinforces its inadequacy. Manuela Coppola has explained that the continued use of the descriptor ‘migrant’ reflected the ambivalence and unease of the Italian literary establishment and wider society towards this group of writers, and their general unwillingness to renegotiate their understanding of a national cultural identity (2011, 122).

In terms of literary form, G2 texts have primarily moved away from largely autobiographical narratives towards autofiction and fiction. Parati highlights how, in the development of a second generation of migrant writers, “autobiography becomes a genre from which to begin that is later rejected in order to embrace multivoiced forms of expression” (2005, 80). The second generation’s move towards fiction allowed these authors to fully explore and dissect the politics of race and multiculturalism in contemporary Italy. Unlike their predecessors, G2

authors were no longer expressing one point of view based on primarily autobiographical experience. They were constructing multivalent texts that unpacked notions of cultural identity and belonging from various perspectives, Italian included. Fiction allowed G2 authors to position these perspectives in dialogue with one another to promote cross-cultural awareness and empathy. G2 writers have also been instrumental in creating a resistant literature that does not conform to traditional stereotypes of migrants, as propagated by the Italian media and the far-right political parties (Parati 2005, 81; Di Maio 2012, 91). Elena Benelli argues that this stylistic evolution has had an emancipatory effect for G2 writers, allowing them to redefine their place in Italian society. According to Benelli:

Talking back is the essential first step towards re-appropriation of agency, migrant authors moved away from autobiography and started to produce complex fictional narratives about migrations and integration. In doing so, they are not only replying to the narratives produced by the state and the media but they also initiate and create a cross-cultural interactive dialogue with the Italian public that will eventually subvert prejudices. They position themselves inside the hermeneutic circle within a complex dialogic process that refers not only to the fact that now they are able to speak for themselves but also because, departing from a strict autobiographical voice, they are able to embody in their works not only their personal voice but those of others as well (2013, 9).

Manuela Coppola argues that this departure from predominantly autobiographical writing is indicative of the second generation’s general objection to a genre that described their predecessors. She further states that the proliferation of “more imaginative forms testifies to the writer’s refusal of the ‘trap’ of their origins, and consciously fails to meet the implicit expectations of writing about migration which, in many cases, has not been experienced personally but only vicariously through their parent’s stories” (2011, 124). The generational removal from the act of migration has prompted G2 authors to focus instead on issues that affect their own lives such as cultural identity, hybridity, and displacement in contemporary multicultural Italy.

What now? Scholarship abandons letteratura della migrazione

The tendency of G2 authors to reject the terms letteratura della migrazione has been taken up by scholars in the field of Italian studies. Daniela Merolla and Sandra Ponzanesi aptly question

“when does a migrant stop being a migrant?” (2005, 4). The move away from migrant literature precipitated an ongoing discussion over the description of writers and their texts. As Cristina

Lombardi-Diop argues, “the fluctuation of terminology is not merely a taxonomic issue but serves to identify what kind of approach critics have adopted in discussing these texts” (2005,

219). The continued discussion among academics on how to refer to texts authored by writers whose forebears or themselves had migrated to Italy prompted a proliferation of terms – each reflecting the theoretical underpinnings of the scholars working on this corpus of texts.

In North America, Parati has advocated for the term italophone texts, which is more in line with terminology used to describe texts written in French and English, like Francophone and

Anglophone. Parati’s theory of Italian literature based exclusively on language can be considered as somewhat of a breakthrough in the field of Italian studies. It allowed Parati to position Italy in relation to its Francophone and Anglophone counterparts, and move beyond a definition of the genre predicated on ethnic and racial identity. Parati draws a divide between

Italophone and non-Italophone authors. Italophone authors are those who are granted access to a national literary tradition based on their identity as ‘native’, and non-Italophone authors are those who are denied the same opportunity because they, or their parents, have acquired Italian as their second language after migration (2005, 55). On a basic level this distinction has allowed scholars to reconceptualise migrant writers in terms of their exclusion from an Italian

“linguistic genealogy” (2005, 55). Parati states that “the Italian language is a privileged site into which otherness translates itself (…). [It] requires a re-drawing of lines of identification beyond migration and ethnicity into less-confining post-migration and post-ethnic realms that

make the use of the term ‘migrant literature’ start to lose its validity” (2005, 71). She highlights that a genre that is based primarily on place, like migrant literature, is already obsolete and reveals a continued bias towards ethnicity. Parati has sought to move towards a definition of identity based on language rather than birthplace. This emphasis on language allows Italian to become “a site of production of meaning and of identity” (2005, 71), leading to a breakdown of the rigid categories of Italian and migrant, self and other, black and white (Carroli & Gerrand

2014, 209), which underpin national literature.

In parallel to Parati, Australian based academics Carroli and Gerrand have argued for a new identification for migrant authors as nomads. Carroli and Gerrand adopted the term ‘nomad’ from Rosi Braidotti’s nomadic materialist philosophy (2014, 205). They define the nomad as

“a subject who has relinquished all idea, desire or nostalgia for fixity” (2014, 205). While nomads exist within the confines of the nation state, they are themselves rootless and create their own identity without relying on place or ethnicity (2010, 211). By employing the trope of the nomad, Carroli and Gerrand illustrate that academics have begun to come to terms with authors who do not easily fit into established categories of ‘migrant’, ‘exile’ or even ‘subaltern’.

Nomadism provides “a flexible existential and political cartography” (2010, 207) that views identity as fluid and borders as porous. This framework creates a lexicon that is temporary, adaptive, and situational. Carroli and Gerrand are, however, careful not to promote an elitist cosmopolitan vision of nomadism. They clarify that “nomadic subjectivity often finds a space for its figuration only in literature, given the still widespread Eurocentric attitudes and political platforms focusing on race and territory” (2014, 206). Nomadic subjectivity is a philosophical figuration of selfhood enacted by G2 authors in their writing. This philosophical figuration enables authors to envisage new representations of identity that move “through and beyond established borders” (2014, 206).

Carroli first introduced the term nomadism in her article ‘Oltre Babilonia? Postcolonial Female

Trajectories towards Nomadic Subjectivity’ (2010), which focused on Igiaba Scego. In contrast to my analysis of Oltre Babilonia, she frames her discussion of trauma in terms of nomadism, arguing that “if there are limits to how much trauma, pain and change our embodied and embedded selves can take, there are also key strategies towards developing nomadic subjectivities” (2010, 211). Carroli portrays cultural, linguistic, and national boundaries as inimical to characters’ wellbeing. While these boundaries are not the root cause of trauma, they restrict the characters’ conception of selfhood and hinder them from envisaging futures that move beyond the trauma they have suffered. She proposes forging nomadic configurations of selfhood as a means of working towards “recovery, empowerment and hope” (2010, 211). One example of this is her assessment of Majid – the grandfather of the younger protagonists Zuhra and Mar. Majid is the victim of a vicious rape at the hands of Nazi and fascist troops. Unable to cope, Majid disappears from Mogadishu and is later depicted wandering Africa in women’s clothing. According to Carroli, Elias imagines his father as a “blissful gender nomad” (2010,

214). Majid has transgressed all boundaries (including gender), to attain a state of insouciance

– having achieved “reconciliation with his troubled sexuality after the rape – a polysexuality radiating positive erotic energy” (Carroli 2010, 214). I wish to offer an alternative reading of

Majid’s predicament. I interpret Majid’s abandonment of his family and subsequent cross- dressing as symptomatic of his unresolved trauma. Majid was emasculated by his attack and was too ashamed to speak about it. His failure to enact witnessing and confide his rape to an empathetic listener results in him deserting his family, leading to him aimlessly roaming the continent, searching for reprieve from his violent past. By disappearing Majid effectively passes trauma on to successive generations. His son Elias never fully recovers from being abandoned and, in turn, fails to be a father to his own children Zuhra and Mar.

Carroli’s interpretation of Majid’s trauma shows why nomadism is unsuitable for my research.

While trauma is central to Carroli’s argument, nomadism is concerned with the creation of sustainable identities for characters, like Majid, who find themselves stifled by rigid boundaries that limit or damage their sense of selfhood. I, on the other hand, focus on the transmission of traumatic memory, enacted through witnessing, as a means of addressing unresolved trauma.

As I mentioned earlier, Elias ultimately breaks his silence over his painful past and records his sorrowful familial history onto cassette for his adult daughter Zuhra. Unlike his father, he engages in a form of witnessing to allay the symptoms of intergenerational trauma.

Carroli and Gerrand present Timira as an exemplar of the transition from migrant to nomadic literature. They contend that the work surpasses outdated “in-between” and “double identity metaphors” (2014, 212) by presenting a protagonist who is simultaneously “Italian, Somali, white, black, real and fictional” (2014, 211). The kaleidoscopic representation of Marincola’s identity is emulated by the text’s composition, which is made up of “different shifting cultures, forms of knowledge, genres and styles” (2014, 211). Carroli and Gerrand argue that the partnership between co-authors Wu Ming 2 and Mohamed engenders nomadic literature: “The intricacies of the writing process, the steps to ensure that it is an equally shared experience, that will change all involved as well as the readers, are accompanied by existential and pragmatic concerns of Timira and Antar about subjectivity and citizenship. All writers are transformed in this process” (2014, 210). Brioni also considers Timira to be revolutionary in its fusing of genres and perspectives. Brioni heralds the egalitarian model of writing adopted by Wu Ming 2 and Mohamed, arguing that to “dividere a metà la scrittura e le fatiche, le lodi e gli insuccessi” (2013, 114) is the only way to avoid the imbalance present in the earlier collaborations. My analysis of the text concurs with that of Brioni, Carroli, and Gerrand.

However, I attribute the success of Timira in overcoming the asymmetry in the writing process

to witnessing. Mohamed and Wu Ming 2 make it clear that dividing the writing equally between them is not a simple solution: “Scrivere insieme, cinquanta e cinquanta, non è garanzia di nulla, e anzi può diventare lo schermo dietro il quale nascondere ulteriori soprusi, con l’aggravante della buona volontà” (2012, 241). I propose that the act of witnessing prevented Wu Ming 2 from usurping Marincola and Mohamed as the chroniclers of their own trauma. By acting as an empathetic listener, Wu Ming 2 recognised his initial mistake in attempting to write on

Marincola’s behalf, which would have denied her and Mohamed their due agency in the process.

Emma Bond observes that many scholars have adopted an approach to literature that promotes a “stretching or going beyond the confines of national boundaries (be that in cultural, spatial or temporal terms)” (Bond 2014, 416). In her survey of Italian cultural and literary studies,

Bond explains that “recent books by Armando Gnisci, Franca Sinopoli and Nora Moll, Vittorio

Coletti, Giuliana Benvenuti and Remo Ceserani, and Rosanna Morace are examples of the critical engagement with the idea of a world or global literature from an Italian perspective”

(2014, 417)5. Despite the variation in terminology, concepts such as global, world literature or transnationalism all reconceptualise Italian literature beyond national borders. Franca Sinopoli has been a major proponent of transnationalism. She has offered a vision of transnazionalità italiana based on the concepts of mobility and italicità. Mobility evokes a bidirectional, intercultural, and dialogic approach to literature. Rather than viewing migrant literature as

‘enriching’ a pre-existing Italian cultural heritage, Sinopoli’s model of mobility focuses on “le interconnessioni, la plurivocalità, la mobilità geografica, la tensione autotraduttoria e l’ibridizione linguistica” (2013, 29), suggesting that cultural identity is the by-product of

5 Armando Gnisci, Franca Sinopoli and Nora Moll published La letteratura del mondo nel XX1 secolo. Milan: Mondadori, 2010. Vittorio Coletti published Romanzo mondo: La letteratura nel villaggio globale Bologna: Il mulino, 2011. Giuliana Benvenuti and Remo Ceserani published La letteratura nell’età globale. Bologna: Il mulino, 2012 and Rosanna Morace published Letteratura-mondo italiana. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2012.

migrations to and from Italy. Sinopoli put forward the concept of mobility in response to the outdated centre-periphery model of literature. This model envisages a monolithic and reified national canon or centre that excludes and marginalises all migrant writers to the periphery.

The centre-periphery model reinforces the concept of italianità, which defines identity in terms of “un’appartenza unicamente etnico-linguistica o giuridico-istituzionale” (2013, 39). In contrast, Sinopoli privileges the inclusive and participatory vision of Italian identity as italicità.

Italicità is a discursive category that allows individuals to enact their identity by partaking in

Italian society. It is based on a “comunità culturale transnazionale” (2013, 30), rather than on the “concetto tradizionale di popolo legato ad un territorio (…) e tutelato (dalla cittadinanza)”

(2013, 30). The concepts of mobility and italicità contribute to a vision of Italy as “a hyphenated, in-between space created by the multiple crossings that etch its geographical surfaces and cultural depths” (Bond 2014, 421). Transnazionalità italiana reconfigures Italian identity beyond a geographical space confined by national borders.

Clarissa Clò and Gregoria Manzin have both acknowledged the transnational dimension of

Regina di fiori e di perle. Clò highlights the emphasis on “transnational identification” (2010,

38) in Regina di fiori e di perle. The text is not only concerned with the traumatic aftermath of

Italian colonisation. It also depicts the trauma of life under the dictatorship of Mengistu Hailè

Mariam and the Derg regime in Ethiopia. Mahlet is not simply a vessel for other people’s memories. She must voice her own trauma growing up under authoritarianism and unite the stories of prior generations with her own into a singular narrative of her community. Clò draws a comparison between the underground opposition to the Derg and the Italian resistance movement: “For an Italian readership familiar with the Italian civil war of 1943-1945 and the partisan’s resistance, the similarities among these histories and struggles, including the strategies adopted by the local populations, cannot escape notice” (Clò 2010, 37). In Clò’s

estimation, Regina di fiori e di perle exposes various forms of oppression to highlight commonalities “beyond national and racial affiliation among diverse populations” (2010, 37).

Clò’s reading of the text shifts the focus onto these “new forms of transnational identification”

(2010, 38) by encouraging readers to search for examples of oppression in their own history.

In contrast, my focus is on the way that Ghermandi draws on the figure of Mahlet, as a cantora to enable Italian readers to access and comprehend the trauma suffered by generations of

Ethiopians. As I will explain later in the chapter, Ghermandi employs specific literary devices to incite an emotive reaction from an Italian readership in the hope that they will come to understand the victim’s trauma as if it were their own.

Manzin also brings attention to the “transnational dimension” (2011, 120) of Regina di fiori e di perle. A dimension that “seeks to defeat the barriers of Otherness erected during the historical moment of encounter between the two countries” (2011, 120) of Italy and Ethiopia.

While Manzin does not refer to witnessing per se, her analysis promotes “dialogue and understanding” (2011, 111) as central tenets of the book. In her anaylsis of Regina di fiori e di perle, Manzin draws on the feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero’s conception of identity derived from “an Arendtian understanding of politics as a scene of co-appearance” (2011, 111).

According to Manzin, by assuming the role of the cantora Mahlet allows characters to voice their story and gain “exposure and visibility” (2011, 116). For Cavarero, exposing one’s story and becoming visible is an inherently political act that asserts an individual’s existence.

Manzin’s reading of Regina di fiori e di perle takes a transnational approach to “move beyond a mere post-colonial view of the world” (2011, 110). She interprets the text as a vehicle to break down “barriers of mutual Othering” (2011, 110). My research is not concerned with the way that Regina di fiori e di perle seeks to disband the categories of coloniser and colonised to

arrive at a transnational understanding of Italy’s colonial past. Instead, my interest lies in the way that Italian characters and, by extension, Italian readers are made to understand the destructive role that colonialism played in the recent history of Ethiopia through witnessing.

Manzin returns to the “dichotomy [of] colonized-colonizer” (2014, 64) in her analysis of Oltre

Babilonia. Comparing Oltre Babilonia to Scego’s earlier work Rhoda, she comments: “If in

Rhoda the relationship between the colonized and the colonizer still acts as a canvas for the exploration of (…) violence (…), Oltre Babilonia moves beyond the original paradigm” (2014,

67). Manzin draws attention to trauma in Oltre Babilonia. Specifically, the elements of horror in the text (2014, 63). She interprets horror as “an offence which is perpetrated against the defenceless victim with the purpose of striking out its ontological statue; that is, a form of destruction which disfigures and annihilates the victim’s uniqueness” (2014, 71-72). Manzin contends that all four women in the text, Miranda, Mar, Maryam, and Zuhra have been the victims of horror that has obliterated their ontological uniqueness and reduced them to a condition of otherness (2014, 85). For Manzin, the rekindling of relationships between mothers, daughters, and sisters has an emancipatory effect that liberates characters from alienation and anomy. She cites “reconciliation and female bonding” (2014, 78) as processes that empower

“the self to break out of the paralysis caused by horror” (2014, 78)). Like Manzin, my analysis reveals that all four women engage in witnessing with each other, allowing them to come to terms with the traumatic events that destroyed their identities. As I explain below in this chapter, I extend this analysis to witnessing at the level of reading – that is witnessing occurring between the text and the reader. This allows me to consider the specific literary devices Scego has embedded in the text to convey trauma to an Italian readership, something Manzin has not addressed in her analysis of Oltre Babilonia.

Sandra Ponzanesi warns against dismissing postcolonialism as an outdated paradigm that has already reached its peak in Western scholarship. She argues that “at a time when postcolonial studies in other countries are on the wane in favour of more all-encompassing categories such as global or transnational studies” (2012, 59), Italian postcolonialism “is experiencing a moment of explosion and expansion” (2012, 59)6. The tendency to view transnationalism as the logical ‘next step’ after migrant literature has sidelined postcolonialism as another avenue of enquiry. Ponzanesi observes that the intellectual trajectory of postcolonialism is still unknown given its relatively recent emergence in Italian studies: “The field of postcolonial studies, as illustrated by Edward Said’s publication of his seminal text Orientalism in 1978, has reached a spectacular level of diffusion and consolidation both at institutional and commercial levels, [however] the field of Italian postcolonial studies is still in its infancy”

(2012, 51). In the following chapter, I argue that the upsurge in migration to Italy since the

1990s has brought the colonial past back into the national spotlight. As Italian society grew ever more anxious about the steady arrival of migrants to the country, colonial memory (and the old racial hierarchies it entailed) were deployed as a means of asserting dominance over minorities (Triulzi 2006, 433). As I will demonstrate in chapter two, the colonial past began to appear in literature, where it had previously been largely absent. In chapter two I will demonstrate that literature serves as a reflection of the prevailing attitudes present in Italian society towards the colonial past. Many of the texts dedicated to this historical period have been clichéd and pejorative in their depiction of the colonised. Fortunately, more nuanced and multifaceted works, like the selected texts, have also begun to emerge. These works account for the trauma of the colonised and their descendants.

6 I am aware of the recent publicarton of Caterina Romeo’s Riscrivere la nazione: la letteratura italiana postcoloniale. Florence: Le Monnier, 2018. Print. Unfortunately, I have not been able to access this work. I would like to thank the assessors for bringing my attention to it.

For example, Regina di fiori e di perle has been widely applauded by critics for its recuperation of the colonial past (De Vivo 2013, 13; Clò 2010, 35). According to Barbara De Vivo,

Ghermandi’s text sets out to combat the collective amnesia of Italian society towards its colonial past and undermines a “visione edulcorata e auto-assolutiva del colonialismo italiano”

(2013, 133). De Vivo argues that through the figure of Mahlet, Ghermandi can create “un antidoto alla perdita di memoria storica e apre un riflessione nell’Italia contemporanea sull’impatto delle narrazioni degli ex-colonizzati nei processi di costituzione e trasmissione della memoria culturale del colonialismo italiano” (2013, 141). I build on De Vivo’s reading of Regina di fiori e di perle, by demonstrating the role of witnessing in the recuperation and transmission of traumatic memories of colonialism. My analysis of Regina di fiori e di perle in chapter four will illustrate that characters who assume the role of an empathetic listener are forced to reconsider Italy’s imperial venture into Africa, when confronted with the psychological anguish exhibited by descendants of the former colonies. De Vivo’s scholarship on Regina di fiori e di perle is one example of the “home-grown postcolonial theorizing”

(Ponzanesi 2012, 59) that is occurring due to Italy’s belated engagement with its colonial past.

Ponzanesi views the belatedness of Italian postcolonialism as a positive factor that should not be brushed over to conceptually ‘catch up’ with other former colonial European nations. I agree with Ponzanesi that Italian postcolonialism is an area of study that still warrants further investigation. However, I do not share Ponzanesi’s view that postcolonialism has been superseded by transnationalism. These conceptual frameworks can co-exist and complement one another. The emergence of a plurality of terms like transnationalism and postcolonialism to describe authors with migrant backgrounds has contributed to my decision to employ the terms trauma novels based on the specific type of intergenerational trauma depicted in the selected texts. The selected authors’ ancestral ties to the former Italian colonies have

undeniably influenced their decision to craft texts that enable readers to ostensibly bear witness to the effects of intergenerational trauma. I am not, however, resorting to the authors’ biographies to understand the texts they have created. I have instead decided to focus on the sequence of traumas caused by Italian colonialism, dictatorship, and civil war narrated by the selected texts and their potential effect on Italian readers.

Trauma novels in Italian Literature

Trauma studies scholar Michelle Balaev suggested the terms trauma novel to analyse a wide variety of works that convey “profound loss or intense fear on individual or collective levels”

(2008, 150)7. The terms trauma novel could refer to texts that portray collective trauma caused by catastrophic events like “war or tsunamis” (Balaev 2008, 150). They could also denote individual experiences of trauma, such as rape and domestic violence. In the context of this research I am referring to intergenerational trauma, which is a collective emotional and psychological injury that goes unresolved across multiple generations (Atkinson, Nelson &

Atkinson 2010, 138). When trauma is not overcome by those who suffer it directly, it creates a pattern of anxiety and grief that continues over several generations. This does not mean that trauma is identical across generations. The symptoms of trauma exhibited by the first generation are not necessarily shared by successive generations. Instead, unresolved grief produces “layers of trauma” (Atkinson, Nelson & Atkinson 2010, 139) that have a cumulative effect. Successive generations inherit their predecessors’ psychological and emotional distress to which they are exposed to “through the narratives, actions and symptoms of the previous

7 Numerous texts written in Italian match Balaev’s description of trauma novels. In terms of collective trauma, Giorgio Bassani’s Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini (1962) and Elsa Morante’s La storia (1974) convey the profound loss of the Holocaust. Luca Doninelli’s Tornavamo dal mare (2004) recounts the trauma of political violence and terrorism during the anni di piombo or ‘years of lead’ that rocked Italy in the 1970s. Margaret Mazzantini’s Non ti muovere (2001) and Cristina Comencini’s La bestia nel cuore (2004) convey the individual trauma caused by rape, abuse, and deprivation. These authors may have drawn on their autobiographical experience for inspiration these works. For example, as a Jewish writer Bassani lived experienced firsthand antisemitism in Fascist Italy (Schneider 1986, 15). Nevertheless, these works are more aligned with trauma novels, which has a basis in fiction, than with testimonial writing, which has a basis in autobiography. I will further explore the relationship between trauma novels and testimonial writing in chapter five.

generation” (Hirsch 2001, 12). This traumatic inheritance renders them psychologically less resilient in the face of adversity. I see intergenerational trauma as a common denominator between the selected texts that allows me to distinguish them from other works. These include

Mario Domenichelli’s Lugemalé (2005); Ubax Cristina Ali Fara’s Madre piccola (2007) and Il comandante del fiume (2014); and Kaha Mohamed Aden’s Fra-intendimenti (2010). As discussed below in this section, these texts depict the traumatic effects of Somalia’s violent history. They do not, however, illustrate how trauma has gone unresolved across generations, linking Somalia’s colonial past to its postcolonial present.

Trauma novels, also known as “trauma fiction” (Whitehead 2004, 4) or “trauma literature”

(Vickroy 2015, 4) are relatively new terms. Laurie Vickroy traces the trauma novel’s origins back to the emergence of twentieth century novels with an emphasis on characters’ inner lives and emotional states (2015, 3). Despite its origins in the early twentieth century scholars were yet to develop terminology to describe works that depicted the immense psychological burden of living through a harrowing event. This is because novels were yet to make explicit reference to trauma in their depictions of suffering. Trauma novels describe “literature written with a conscious awareness of the concept” (Vickroy 2015, 3) of trauma. The terms trauma novels

“emerged over the past thirty years largely (…) [in response] to the late twentieth century’s and early twenty first century’s coalescing awareness of the catastrophic effects on the individual psyche of wars, sexual and physical assaults, poverty, and colonization” (Vickroy

2015, 2). The field of trauma studies in literary theory grew out of the medical and scientific discourse. Trauma originally referred to a surgical wound. It denoted “a rupture to the skin or protective envelope of the body” (Leys 2000, 19). At some stage in the nineteenth century the

concept migrated over to psychology and psychiatry8, and was theorised as the piercing of the mind caused by an external shock (Leys 2000, 19). Scholars only began to explicitly refer to texts as trauma novels from 1980 onwards after post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) appeared in the “diagnostic canon of the medical and psychiatric professions” (Whitehead 2004, 4). By the early 1990s trauma studies in literary theory had emerged “as a distinct field of humanistic study that sought to understand the literary, cultural and ethical implications of trauma” (Rivkin

& Ryan 2004, 637). According to Balaev, trauma studies established itself as a discipline in literary theory with the publication of two seminal works in the mid-1990s, Cathy Caruth’s

Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History (1996) and Kali Tal’s Worlds of Hurt:

Reading the Literatures of Trauma (1996) (2014, 1). Caruth popularised a model of trauma that psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud developed in Studies of Hysteria (1895), co-written with

Josef Breuer, and “The Aetiology of Hysteria” (1896). Freud initially theorised trauma as a painful event that had not been integrated into consciousness at the time of its occurrence and needed to be verbally expressed by the victim (Visser 2011, 274). He continued to revise his theory of trauma over the course of his psychoanalytic career. Perhaps most crucially he developed the concept of Nachträglichkeit, which means belatedness or deferred action (Visser

2011, 273). Deferred action introduced the notion of latency, a term used to indicate a traumatic experience that is relived at a later point in time (Laplanche & Pontalis 1973, 111)9. After surveying the effects of trench warfare on the veterans of World War One, Freud came to associate deferred action with “compulsive repetition caused by sudden violent intrusion of overwhelming stimuli” (Visser 2011, 273). Freud invoked militaristic imagery in his description of trauma representing the victim’s ego as being under siege by external stimuli

8 Leys highlights that the precise date that the concept of trauma began to appear in psychology and psychiatry is unknown as it is “not easy to retrace the ‘transposition’ of this medicosurgical notion [of trauma] into psychology and psychiatry” (2000, 19). 9 Leys has provided an extensive overview of the evolution of Freud’s theory of trauma in Trauma: A Genealogy. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2000. This work includes an exposition of the concept of Nachträglichkeit.

that threatened to break through the mind’s protective shield (Leys 2000, 23). Following Freud,

Caruth promulgated a theory of trauma as a breach of the mind that blunts its capacity to register events (1996, 3). As the mind is temporarily short circuited by an external shock, memories of a traumatic event remain buried in the unconscious and return to haunt the victim in the form of nightmares and repetitive actions (Caruth 1996, 4). In literature, Caruth theorised trauma as an event that cannot be freely remembered by the victim and is represented through features like aporia, rupture, and difficulty (Rivkin & Ryan 2004, 638). The inability of characters to recall their trauma within conscious memory has become a widely accepted characteristic of the genre: “More often than not, trauma novels must renounce the possibility of describing the unassimilated traumatic memory and build their impossibility into the textual fabric, performing the void” (Ganteau & Onega 2014, 11). Trauma novels often allude to traumatic experiences but do not represent them directly. Responsibility is deferred onto the reader to discern from the ellipses in the narrative that a terrible event has assailed a traumatised character. Narratives typically split characters’ lives into the sequences before and after trauma.

Laurence J. Kirmayer recognises that traumatic events interrupt life stories by stating that “the disjunction between self at the time of trauma (…) and at present shows the (...) partial existence of two selves. These two selves live in two distinct worlds and are joined through the continuity of private pain” (1996, 185). Characters struggle to integrate these two selves into a cohesive identity and to reconcile the terrible ordeal they have suffered with their everyday existence. When characters do finally recall their trauma, they have difficulty articulating their harrowing experience, stumbling over their words as they are assailed by the memory of their repressed trauma. Readers are often provided with snippets of traumatic memory that emerge through violent flashbacks of the event. Since scholars like Caruth and Tal introduced features like aporia, rupture, and difficulty into the ambit of literary theory, the genre has evolved into

“literature (…) [that] demonstrates knowledge of psychological processes and includes literary

elements and figurative language reflecting the causes and consequences of traumatic reaction”

(Vickroy 2015, 3). As writers have become more acquainted with the concept of trauma, a set of distinct features have emerged that, I argue, link all texts together in the genre, regardless of the harrowing events they depict.

By outlining these features of trauma novels, I am able to differentiate the selected texts from many other works by authors such as Erminia Dell’Oro, Carlo Lucarelli and Enrico Brizzi, which I discuss in the following chapter. All of these texts deal with similar themes of Italian imperialism and the postcolonial histories of Italy and its former colonies. The term trauma novel is not concerned with issues surrounding authorial identity but instead focuses on the central events depicted in the three texts, namely a succession of traumas spanning across generations. The framing of my analysis of the selected texts through the lens of trauma allows me to concentrate on the transmission and renegotiation of traumatic memory while still exploring the themes of migration, postcolonialism, and Italian national identity that have dominated prior scholarship on the selected texts (Mauceri 2004, 1; Carroli 2010, 205; Clò

2010, 35; Carroli & Gerrand 2014, 210; Orton 2011, 404; Polezzi 2017, 1; Brioni 2013, 114;

De Vivo 2013, 123, Manzin 2014, 64; Manzin 2011, 110). I aim to examine migration, postcolonialism, and Italian national identity in my analysis because the trauma that multiple generations of Somalis and Ethiopians have experienced is, I argue, directly linked to these themes.

My analysis exposes how the intergenerational trauma experienced by Somalis and Ethiopians has been perpetuated by contemporary Italy’s lack of recognition of its colonial past. Italy’s lack of recognition of colonialism has been the subject of much prior scholarship. Vanessa

Maher and Paolo Bertella Farnetti attribute this lack of recognition to the collective amnesia of

Italian society in their respective publications “Immigration and Social Identities” (1996) and

“Italy’s Colonial Past between Private Memories and Collective Amnesia” (2015). Jacqueline

Andall and Derek Duncan use the psychoanalytic notion of repression to refer to Italy’s relationship with colonial memory in Italian Colonialism: Legacy and Memory (2005).

Meanwhile, Alessandro Triulzi prefers the metaphor of displacement to describe Italy’s reluctance to engage with its history of imperialism in his article “Displacing the Colonial

Event.” (2006). Finally, Nicola Labanca describes the collective silence of Italian society towards colonial memory in “Post-colonial Italy: The Case of a Small and Belated Empire:

From Strong Emotions to Bigger Problems” (2015).

For protagonists who have migrated to or grown up in Italy the unwillingness of Italians to acknowledge the detrimental role that their country played in the calamitous histories of

Somalia and Ethiopia has inflicted further psychological damage on them. Traumatised protagonists yearn for Italians to acknowledge the reverberations of their colonial history.

Timira: romanzo meticcio makes the point that the reluctance of Italians to recognise the trauma of the protagonists stems from their refusal to reimagine their idea of national identity to include the meticcio children descendant from the colonies. The protagonist Isabella

Marincola faces a backlash from locals in the Northern Italian town of Stramentizzo when she insists that her brother Giorgio was Italian. The locals remain incredulous to her testimony due to the colour of Giorgio’s skin (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 155). When Mahlet is exposed to the traumatic testimonies of those who lived through the Italian occupation of Ethiopia in

Regina di fiori e di perle, she is incensed with rage thinking back to the callous indifference many Italians showed towards their colonial past (Ghermandi 2007, 236). On her return to

Italy, Mahlet vows to confront many of the phlegmatic Italians she encountered while studying in Bologna and challenge the perception that Ethiopians were the beneficiaries of Italian

modernity that brought them “strade, scuole, [e] case” (Ghermandi 2007, 237). Meanwhile, in

Oltre Babilonia Zuhra is struggling to find her place in contemporary Italy due to her mother

Maryam’s aversion to Italians. Maryam lost her parents to Italian colonialism. She harbors resentment towards Italians for their apparent disinterest in their former colonial possession of

Somalia (Scego 2008, 250). Maryam grows increasingly insular and takes up drinking to cope, paying little attention to her daughter. In chapter three, my analysis reveals that Maryam’s unresolved anger towards Italy adversely affects Zuhra – undermining her sense of self and indirectly contributing to her abuse.

Trauma novels: Distinct features

The first distinct feature of trauma novels is the “transformation of the self - ignited by an external event, often a terrifying experience, which illuminates the process of coming to terms with the dynamics of memory that inform the new perceptions of the self and the world”

(Balaev 2008, 150). This terrifying experience can vary from catastrophes like natural disaster to deeply personal violations of selfhood such as domestic violence or sexual abuse. My analysis serves to identify distinct features of trauma novels. I will go on to identify these features as they appear in the selected texts in chapter three. Chief among these features is the fragmentation of selfhood caused by suffering a traumatic event. A feature that Balaev refers to as the “shattering trope” (2008, 150). Typically, a traumatic event is depicted as being so extreme and horrific that it “shatters or disables the victim’s cognitive and perceptual capacities so that the experience never becomes part of the ordinary memory system” (Leys 2000, 298).

Traumatic events are considered outside of the normal boundaries of morality and societal norms and are an affront to the victim’s perception of the world. The fragmentation of the victim’s cognitive and narrative framework harkens back to Freud’s early description of trauma as “the hysterical shattering of the personality consequent on a situation of extreme terror or

fright” (Leys 2000, 4). According to this model, traumatic memories splinter off from consciousness to protect the self against a complete dissolution of selfhood and to “reduce the victim’s immediate sense of violation and help the person endure and survive the situation”

(Vickroy 2015, 8). When trauma occurs “it registers as a non-experience, causing conventional epistemologies to falter” (Whitehead 2004, 5). The traumatic event remains sealed off from conscious memory due to the threat it poses to the “coherent cognitive schemata” (Balaev 2008,

151) of the mind.

Traumatic memory cannot be freely recalled, it resurfaces in the form of flashbacks. The repetition of traumatic memory is another fundamental feature of the genre. The ossified fragments of memory burst into consciousness, unexpectedly transporting the victim back to their ordeal (Leys 2000, 2). The victim is condemned to belatedly relive a trauma that

“insistently and intrusively returns” (Whitehead 2004, 5). Jean-Michel Ganteau and Susan

Onega contend that traumatic memory takes the form of sensorial images rather than words

(2014, 3). The revenants of trauma reappear as photographic stills. This adheres to the model of trauma popularised by Caruth who argues that “to be traumatised is precisely to be possessed by an image or event” (1996, 5). Until the event can be put into words and understood within a chronological narrative of selfhood trauma is destined to return as a timeless snapshot.

Nanette Auerhahn and Dori Laub (1990) observe that the reliving trauma leads to further fragmentation of identity. As the terrifying experience is considered to exist beyond societal norms, the victim is forced to carry the burden of trauma alone. The intense feelings of shame and helplessness further isolate victims from their community and “the self, its cohesiveness over time, and its ability to integrate and make sense eventually suffer, and vulnerability to external experience and to internal emotion increases” (1990, 448). This leads to another distinct feature of trauma novels, namely the “disruption between self and others” (Balaev

2008, 150). Vickroy highlights that “individuals construct their sense of self from intersubjective recognition” (2015, 12). Intersubjectivity denotes the way in which identities are constituted through one’s relationship to others (Lewis 1993, 376). Trauma destroys intersubjectivity. This is because “the link between self and other is predicated on the possibility and expectation of empathy - on the possibility of mutual recognition of the self in the other” (Auerhahn & Laub 1990, 448). Trauma fundamentally alters the way in which victims relate to others. When acts of violence or abuse are perpetrated against an individual or group, as they have been in the selected texts, victims begin to doubt in the existence of empathy. After being subjected to acts of cruelty, victims lose faith in the possibility of being recognised as a fellow human being by others. A traumatic event “will throw into question not only the existence of empathy and human communication, but also ultimately one’s own humanity to which any mirroring experience ceases to exist” (Auerhahn & Laub 1990, 448).

When empathy is destroyed “faith in the efficacy of communication dies” (Auerhahn & Laub

1990, 448) and victims are no longer certain that they will be listened to and believed by others.

They exist within a “void” (Ganteau & Onega 2014, 11), cut off from society and those around them.

Another distinct feature of trauma novels that must be considered is their depiction of characters coming to terms with what has happened to them (Baleav 2008, 150). Trauma novels, generally, do not only portray the horrific events without providing any attempt at resolution, they tend to portray characters in the wake of a horrific event attempting to overcome their traumatisation and moving towards healing. According to Balaev, one of the most common features of the genre is for victims to achieve catharsis by recalling and narrating their traumatic memory. Balaev refers to this as the “abreactive model” (2008, 150). She states that “the popular trauma theory employed today (…) emphasizes the necessity to recreate or

abreact through narrative recall of the experience” (2008, 150). Abreaction is another psychoanalytic concept introduced by Freud in 1893 (Akhtar 2009, 18). This is a further indication of the pervasiveness of a Freudian model of trauma in contemporary literary theory.

Put simply, abreaction refers to the “emotional discharge whereby the subject liberates himself from the affect attached to the memory of a traumatic event in such a way that this affect is not able to become (or to remain) pathogenic” (Laplanche & Pontalis 1973, xv). Abreaction has been equated to the “emotional reliving” (Akhtar 2009, 18) of traumatic memory or a “state of brain excitement” (Leys 2000, 209) that repeats the initial “traumatic shock” (Leys 2000, 209).

For Ruth Leys, the emotional reliving of trauma is engendered by its retelling. She highlights that catharsis depends on both “the cognitive recovery and integration of memories” (2000, 12) and “the emotional intensity of the cathartic discharge, or abreaction” (2000, 12). Auehahn and

Laub have taken a different view – arguing that catharsis is achieved by reinstating the empathetic, intersubjective bond between self and other that was destroyed by trauma (1990,

448). In their estimation, the victim’s need to narrate traumatic memory has been conceptualised either as “a means of combating his internal sense of fragmentation and of giving inner form to his experience” (1990 452), or as “a means of externalization: of expelling the wound and of affirming one’s integrity by driving out the pain’ (1990, 452). Auehahn and

Laub consider these approaches as “incomplete [because] they ignore the interpersonal dimension of the act of telling” (1990, 452). For these two scholars, the narration of trauma is a fundamentally social act that functions as a “means of rejoining a community by making one’s experience available to others” (1990, 452). By narrating trauma to another individual or to a community, victims are rehabilitating a connection to others and reclaiming their status as human. Auerhahn and Laub refer to this as “reflexively constituting the self as one who can be listened to and addressed” (1990, 452). This emphasis on the intersubjective aspect of abreaction draws parallels with my theoretical framework of witnessing.

One final feature of trauma novels is their capacity to immerse readers in the trauma they depict. Vickroy observes: “Trauma fiction provides scenarios that confront readers with subjective endurance in the face of crisis and conflict (…). This fiction also provides a contemplative and experiential link to traumatic processes (…). These texts involve readers in worlds that traumatized individuals try to construct for themselves” (Vickroy 2015, xi). The feelings of horror, trepidation, and agony conjured by reading about trauma may be difficult to bear and could provoke an emotional reaction from the reader10. An Italian audience may experience negative emotions like shame, guilt, and disbelief when confronted by depictions of real historical traumas like Italian colonialism, dictatorship, and civil war. Given that the act of reading about may be accompanied by this sense of burden, the authors in question craft sprawling narratives that unfurl across multiple continents, generations, languages and cultures to entice Italian readers to embark on an imaginative journey and to envisage the worlds trauma victims construct for themselves (Gerrig 1993, 5). Trauma novels have the potential to allow readers to be briefly wrenched out of their daily lives and slip into the skin of the victim.

Readers are given the chance to know this suffering from within on a visceral level. To feel deep within their gut the sense of terror and grief of those who are suffering on the page.

As trauma novels, the selected texts draw on a series of literary devices and stylistic features, discussed in the following section, to provide readers with this “contemplative and experiential link” (Vickroy 2015, xi) to trauma. These literary devices include directly addressing the reader; ellipsis, anachrony, and repetition; a fictional relationship between an author and a reader; and stylistic features like the inclusion of photographs. Taken together, these literary

10 Dominik LaCapra clarifies that the emotional reactions to trauma will be varied. Some “expressions of emotion may be quite moving for some but kitsch for others” (2001, 217).

devices and stylistic features produce a specific type of reading that is akin to witnessing. I argue that this allows readers to enter the victim’s subjectivity and briefly experience trauma for themselves. I interpret the presence of these literary devices and stylistic features as an indication that the selected authors believe that intergenerational trauma still needs to be narrated and shared with an Italian audience. The authors have put their faith in the capacity of literature to transport readers outside of themselves into the place of the victim. Each author reveals their intention to transport their readers into the shoes of trauma victims in interviews and non-fiction.

In Igiaba Scego’s Roma negata: percorsi postcoloniali nella città, a 2014 monograph on colonial architecture in Rome written with photographer Rino Bianchi, the author states: “Il colonialismo è una chiave per far capire all’Europa i suoi errori e cercare, a partire da quelli, di costruirla in maniera differente. Non attraverso l’egemonia quindi, ma attraverso un rispetto reciprico e un ascolto collettivo delle storie (…). Questa storia di dolore [del colonialismo] (…) non la posso dimenticare (…). Per questo forse, a modo mio, la racconto” (2014, 24). This passage indicates that Scego has put her trust in the power of writing to remind Italians of their painful past in Africa and instigate dialogue between Italians and their former colonial subjects.

In an interview conducted by students and facilitated by Italianist Classira Clò at the San Diego

State University Ghermandi describes Regina di fiori e di perle as a “gift to Italians who may be encouraged to pay a closer look at their own disavowed past in order to begin to ‘heal’ from it” (Clò 2009, 151). Ghermandi describes her artistic works, both literary and performance based, as opening the possibility of experiencing different histories through an immersive experience. Her work creates a “space where past events can be brought to life and shared with others (…) [enabling] audiences to re-live a story they never experienced before” (Clò 2009,

146). Ghermandi’s philosophy can be extended to her novel, which allows the reader to view

colonial history from an Ethiopian perspective. I equate this immersive space the author promotes through her work with the “contemplative and experiential link” (Vickroy 2015, xi) to trauma described by Vickroy. The co-authors of Timira: romanzo meticcio reveal their motivation for writing in the paratextual elements of the book: “Grazie ai lettori il testo acquista nuovi significati e genera poi discorso, passaparola, commenti, recensioni, riscritture, trasposizioni" (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 530-524). This intention concurs with the wider philosophy of the Wu Ming collective outlined by Wu Ming 1: “La letteratura è un’arte maieutica e leggere è sempre un atto di partecipazione e co-creazione” (2008, 12). The Wu

Ming collective promotes this idea of reading as an act of co-creation. According to

Psychologist Richard Gerrig, readers are required to imagine a narrative world to inhabit it

(1993, 3). Readers generate this narrative world drawing on material in the text. They are

“transported by a narrative by virtue of performing that narrative” (1993, 2). The authors of

Timira call on readers to envisage narrative worlds that allow them to step into the shoes of characters like Isabella Marincola (Gerrig 1993, 5).

Methodology

Witnessing

Drawing on witnessing, I investigate the transmission and renegotiation of traumatic memory in the three texts. The concept of witnessing is ubiquitous in trauma and Holocaust studies and has acquired numerous meanings (Jilovsky 2015, 9). To clarify, witnessing in the context of this research refers to the theory developed by Felman and Laub in their seminal text

Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History. First published in

1992, the text laid the conceptual groundwork for a theory that accounted for an empathetic listener vis-à-vis addressable other in the process of bearing witness to a traumatic memory.

The theory was born out of Felman’s research into pedagogy and trauma and Laub’s work

recording the testimony of Holocaust survivors for the Video Archive of Holocaust Testimony

(2013, 40). Felman and Laub posited that for survivors the Holocaust was “an event too traumatic and incomprehensible to be witnessed as it unfolded, but able to be witnessed afterwards by giving testimony in the presence of another” (Jilovsky 2015, 12). To overcome trauma, victims need to articulate and externalise their harrowing memories to an audience.

Felman and Laub assert that this transmission of traumatic memory to another is not merely therapeutic but vital for their recovery, stating that “the absence of an empathetic listener, or more radically, the absence of an addressable other, the other who can bear the anguish of one’s memories and thus affirm and recognise their realness, annihilates the story” (2013, 68).

According to Felman and Laub, there is an existential need for trauma victims to transmit their memories because their very identity depends on it. Victims have experienced an event so overwhelming that it has shattered and destroyed their subjectivity. They can only reconstitute and affirm their identity by testifying to an audience. For this reason, having their testimony heard and recognised by another is their raison d’être. Felman and Laub confirm that “the survivor did not only survive so that they could tell their story; they also needed to tell their story in order to survive. In each survivor there is an imperative need to tell and thus to come to know one’s own story, unimpeded by ghosts from the past” (2013, 28). This indicates that following trauma a victim’s identity is ontologically rooted in their testimony. They are “the medium of realization of the testimony” (Felman & Laub 2013, 3) they hold inside them, and testifying is their only hope of overcoming a past that continues to haunt them.

Felman and Laub’s concept has been subjected to criticism. Esther Jilovsky has labelled their theorisation of witnessing “controversial” (2012, 12), because it places too much emphasis on the listener and “obscures the role (…) [of the victim] as chronicler of their own life experience” (2012, 13). Jilovsky’s concern warrants consideration. It begs the question: what

exactly can a trauma victim achieve in the presence of an empathetic listener that they cannot achieve alone? Felman and Laub have gone to great lengths to outline the pivotal role played by the empathetic listener in their study of witnessing. They argue that the listener does not overshadow the victim or speak on their behalf. Rather the listener is “the enabler of testimony

- the one who triggers its initiation, as well as the guardian of its process and of its momentum”

(Felman & Laub 2013, 58). Traumatic events defy belief and cannot be comprehended within the schema of everyday life. As Felman and Laub point out, “massive trauma precludes its registration: the observing and recording mechanism of the human mind are temporarily knocked out, malfunction” (2013, 57). Traumatic memories, therefore, cannot be assimilated into the cognitive and narrative frameworks of the victim. They remain abject, secluded within the recesses of the victim’s mind and only resurface as violent flashbacks. Fundamentally, witnessing re-establishes a consensual reality in which the victim is free to express their trauma without fearing that they will not be believed. To have their testimony heard and validated is

“to undo this entrapment in a fate that cannot be known, cannot be told, but can only be repeated” (2013, 69). The fact that traumatic memories are being narrated for an audience allows the ossified fragments of traumatic memory to cohere into narrative form. Felman and

Laub argue that this narrativisation of traumatic memory is only possible in the presence of an empathetic listener, “testimonies are not monologues; they cannot take place in solitude (…),

[victims] are talking to somebody; to somebody they have been waiting for” (2013, 71). The two scholars suggest that in the absence of an empathetic listener traumatic memories continue to manifest as flashbacks that are being relived rather than retold, warning that “if one talks about the trauma, without being truly heard or listened to, the telling might itself be lived as a return of the trauma - a re-experiencing of the event itself” (2013, 67). By articulating memories alone victims risk the danger of re-traumatisation. The empathetic listener is therefore crucial because they accompany the victim during this recollection of traumatic memory, and have the

fortitude to fully confront traumatic memories with the victim in an attempt to overcome them.

As Laub points out, “the listener needs to (…) be a guide and an explorer, a companion in a journey onto an uncharted land, a journey the survivor cannot traverse or return from alone”

(2013, 59). The empathetic listener does not, as Jilovsky suggests, undermine the authority of the victim as the narrator of their experience. They provide the emotional support required by the terrified victim to revisit a horrific and seemingly insurmountable event from their past.

I submit that witnessing occurs on several levels in the selected texts. My analysis will demonstrate that witnessing occurs at the level of the narrative – that is the encounter between traumatised protagonists and characters who act as empathetic listeners; and at the level of the text’s construction – in the case of Regina di fiori e di perle this refers to Ghermandi’s use of

Mahlet as a literary device for the retelling of traumatic memories of colonialism. In the case of Timira: romanzo meticcio, my analysis focusses on the co-authorship between Wu Ming 2 and Antar Mohamed and the impact it had on the text’s composition. I also recognise the existence of witnessing at the level of reading – that is witnessing occurring between the text and the reader. This is a common feature that unites the selected works. Not only do the texts describe witnessing occurring between characters in the narrative, they also elicit witnessing from the Italian readership by employing specific literary devices and stylistic features. In chapter five I analyse how these devices and features allow readers to function similarly to an empathetic listener and momentarily eclipse their cultural boundaries to comprehend trauma from the victim’s perspective. These literary devices include directly addressing the reader in

Regina di fiori e di perle, ellipsis, anachrony, repetition, and a fictional relationship between an author and a reader in Oltre Babilonia (namely Miranda and Zuhra). Meanwhile Timira: romanzo meticcio relies on the inclusion of photographs as a stylistic feature to elicit witnessing from readers.

My exploration of witnessing at all three levels is a contribution to the field of Italian literary studies. On the one hand, at the level of the narrative, my research illustrates the evolving relationship between Italians and descendants of the former colonies, looking specifically at the way that memories of Italian imperialism are being renegotiated to include the suffering of the colonised. On the other hand, my examination of the impact that witnessing had on the writing of Timira: romanzo meticcio provides new insight into the issue of co-authorship.

Timira: romanzo meticcio arguably offers a new model of writing that avoids repeating the earlier unequal collaborations between Italian writers and authors with diverse cultural backgrounds. I also draw attention to the literary devices and stylistic features that allow readers to partake in the trauma narrated by victims in the texts. Italian readers gain a new understanding into Italian colonialism because they are solicited to experience it for themselves through a type of reading akin to witnessing.

Testimony

Throughout my analysis of witnessing in the selected texts, I will continue to refer to the testimony of victims. Testimony is the narrative account of traumatic memory that emerges from the act of witnessing, facilitated by an empathetic listener. I will explain the concept of testimony and testimonial writing in the following paragraphs given that I frequently discuss the testimony of traumatised characters throughout this thesis. According to James Young, testimony is treated by both victims and their audience as a genuine and authoritative account of trauma. Testimony “literally delivers documentary evidence of specific events (…). That it be received as testimonial proof of the events it embodies” (1987, 403). The testimonies depicted in the selected texts cannot be thought of as genuine and authoritative accounts of trauma, like those found in testimonial writing. As I explain in the following paragraphs, testimonial writing is at the basis of two distinct traditions namely Holocaust testimony and

the Latin American genre of testimonio. Despite exhibiting characteristics of both Holocaust testimony and testimonio, I do not consider the selected texts to be examples of testimonial writing. For example, like Holocaust survivors, victims in the selected texts are motivated by an existential need to have their testimonies listened to and believed. And like testimonio, the texts depict the real historical tragedies of colonialism, dictatorship, and war suffered by

Somalia and Ethiopia from within fictional narratives. In chapter five, I will explore the relationship between trauma novels and testimonial writing.

Trauma novels and testimonial writing are constitutively different. As I previously outlined, trauma novels have their basis in fiction and the emergence of twentieth century novels

(Vickroy 2013, 3). Testimonial writing, on the other hand, has its origins in Holocaust testimony and testimonio. Holocaust testimony emerged as a response to the unconscionable acts of violence perpetrated against Jews under Nazism. It enabled Holocaust survivors to faithfully convey the atrocities that had occurred. Efraim Sicher observes that in the immediate post war period the texts published were “cheap and sensational” (2005, 45), and lacked creativity. These accounts of the Holocaust did not promote understanding or empathy from the reader and instead indulged in gratuitous depictions of violence and bloodshed. By contrast, the first texts written by survivors, such as Night (1956) by Elie Wiesel and If This is a Man

(1947) by Primo Levi, attempted to make readers comprehend the extreme suffering of those in concentration camps. Sicher explains that these works struggled to gain attention from the general public: “Survivors such as Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi did not at first find it easy to find an audience for their harrowing accounts of life in the camps, but gradually their first books were recognized as documents of unprecedented horror and suffering. The poetry of Paul

Celan, Nelly Sachs, and Dan Pagis (…), and the art that emerged from the camps helped establish a Holocaust literature” (2005, 18). These first attempts to capture in language the

complete and utter destruction of human life during the Holocaust created a new genre of testimony. Holocaust testimony defied prior conventions of genre in terms of truth – because the Holocaust was such an unrivalled act of evil in Europe survivors were granted unequivocal ethical and epistemological authority. Nancy Goodman and Marilyn Meyers describe the impetus behind Holocaust writing, explaining that testimony offers survivors the opportunity to reaffirm their humanity to an audience (2012, 3). The dehumanising effects of Nazism had convinced victims that no one would believe what had happened to them, “causing complete rupture in belief in a world where one matters and is recognised” (2012, 10). Holocaust testimony represents an attempt to overcome this fear of not being believed. Matthew Boswell describes that:

Elie Wiesel famously wrote that his generation invented a new literature, that of testimony, and, irrespective of when or by whom this new literature was first written there is something distinct about the way that we read testimony, and Holocaust testimony in particular - about the way we find ourselves asking not simply what we think but what we should think, or even more strongly what we are required to think (2010, 165).

Since its inception, Holocaust testimony has taken the form of diary entries, poetry, comics, memoir, fiction and later video testimony with the creation of the Video Archive for Holocaust

Testimonies at Yale University in 1981 (Young 1987, 412). These accounts of trauma are

“bound by certain rules and governing codes” (Boswell 2010, 166) that produces a specific kind of reaction from readers and spectators in the case of video testimony. Holocaust testimony requires a commitment from readers to accept from the outset, that narrators are providing a faithful account of a traumatic event. They must assent to the subjective truth rather than the factual accuracy of the victim’s words.

In parallel, the genre of testimonio emerged out of narratives written on behalf of the

Indigenous communities in Guatemala and those oppressed by the military dictatorships in

Chile and Argentina. Testimonio is a Spanish term that can be translated as testimonial narrative

(Bevereley 2004, ix). John Beverley heralds I, Rigoberta Menchú (1980), the story of

Indigenous Guatemalan woman Rigoberta Menchú Thum written by anthropologist Elisabeth

Burgos as the first work of testimonio. It documents the human rights abuses suffered by the

Indigenous peoples during the Guatemalan civil war (2004, xi). The genre has since been taken up by academics in cultural and subaltern studies who have noticed similarities with works being produced by other oppressed communities globally (2004, xi). Testimonio has been defined as a narrative produced by an author writing on behalf of a victim who is perceived to lack the literary capability to narrate their own story. The genre is commonly associated with communities who urgently need to communicate their plight to the outside world (Brenneis

2014, 40). In testimonio collective experiences of oppression are narrated from an individual autobiographical perspective with the narrator acting as a conduit for their community (Unnold

2002, 65). Testimonio requires its readers to accept from the outset that the text is representative of true events. Beverley contends that “testimonio’s ethical and epistemological authority derives from the fact that we [readers] are meant to presume that its narrator is someone who has lived in his or her person, or indirectly through the experiences of friends, family neighbours, or significant others, the events and experiences that he or she narrates” (2004, 3).

Like Holocaust testimony, testimonio’s claim to truth is due to its extra-literary quality – that is its explicit allusion to an external historical event. Beverley points out that testimonio’s extra- literary quality also means that “it cannot be adequately contained within the category of

‘literature’ without putting the category itself into crisis” (2004, 19). Testimonio continues to confound scholars by defying existing “assumptions about truth and falsity, history and fiction, science and literature” (Beverley 2004, 40). While testimonio refers explicitly to an external historical event its “authenticity claim is manifested and reinforced from within the narrative”

(2002, 47). Yvonne S. Unnold claims that testimonio deliberately undermines the conventions of genre because it acts as a sociopolitical tool that contests authorised historical narratives

(2002, 47). Narrators cannot rely on institutionalised representations of the past that have erased their oppression, leading them to create their own truth in testimonio, which defies official history. While trauma novels have undoubtedly been influenced by real life tragedies from the twentieth and twenty-first century, like those described by Holocaust testimony and testimonio, they belong to a fundamentally different genre. A genre that has its origins in fiction, unlike testimonial writing, which has arisen from a need to document real life accounts of trauma.

This introductory chapter has introduced the selected corpus of texts. It discussed the rise of letteratura della migrazione – a genre with which the selected texts have been associated due to the migrant backgrounds of the selected writers. I highlighted that scholars have been increasingly reluctant to use the term letteratura della migrazione to describe authors whose forebears or themselves migrated to Italy, choosing to endorse other terms like italophone, nomadic, transnational or postcolonial. A review of existing scholarship demonstrated that the theoretical approaches put forward in prior literature were unsuitable for my research, leading me to employ the terms trauma novels. I then endorsed witnessing as a theoretical framework for my research. In chapter two, I will discuss the belated engagement with colonialism by contemporary Italian literature. I explore how different genres have depicted Italian colonialism. This serves to highlight the unique function of the trauma novels I have selected to represent and convey intergenerational trauma to Italian readers. Chapter three will go on to analyse intergenerational trauma depicted in the selected texts. It illustrates that the violent events of Italian colonialism, dictatorship, and civil war in the histories of Ethiopia and Somalia have created a pattern of trauma that goes unresolved across generations. Chapter four analyses witnessing at the level of the narrative. This refers to acts of witnessing that take place between traumatised protagonists and various characters who act as empathetic listeners in the selected

texts. Chapter four goes on to examine witnessing at the level of the text and its construction.

In Regina di fiori e di perle this denotes Mahlet’s role as a cantora as a literary device that allows for the retelling of traumatic memories of Italian colonialism. In Timira: romanzo meticcio I focus on the issue co-authorship between Wu Ming 2 and Antar Mohamed and the impact that witnessing had on the text’s construction. In chapter five I examine the literary devices and stylistic features embedded in the selected texts to represent and convey trauma to

Italian readers. I argue that these literary devices and stylistic features engender a specific type of reading that is akin to witnessing. Chapter six then considers the role that trauma novels can play in reshaping Italian readers’ understanding of the colonial past.

Chapter 2- The Italian colonial experience in literature

“Un interesse in ambito letterario per il colonialismo (…) si è manifestato in Italia negli ultimi vent’anni (…). Il proliferare di opere che riguardano il colonialismo italiano pone di fronte a un fenomeno culturale e letterario che non è ormai più possibile ignorare o sminuire” (Brioni 2013, 112).

The renewed interest in Italy’s former colonial possessions in Africa described by Brioni resulted from increased migration to Italy in the 1990s (Labanca 2015, 132). The advent of mass migration coincided with a new phase of literature concerned with the Italian colonial enterprise (Labanca 2015, 134). The focus of this chapter is to explore how different genres have portrayed Italian colonialism. The chapter illustrates that literature has partly contributed to the selective recollection of the Italian colonial past, which I have introduced in chapter one as colonial memory. Italian readers have been deprived of depictions of the former Italian colonies that feature the perspectives of the colonised and their descendants or narrate the trauma they have endured. Instead readers have frequently been presented with outdated traits and archetypes of Africa and its inhabitants. It is only with the publication of trauma novels like the selected texts that more complex and nuanced perspectives on the former colonies that incorporate the colonised point of view have begun to emerge.

After explaining the correlation between the migratory influx to Italy and the increase in texts devoted to colonialism, I discuss the lack of decolonisation of Italian society, to illustrate the historical factors that may have contributed to the previous absence of literature on the topic of

Italian colonialism. The few texts that were published in the intervening years between the end of the Second World War and the advent of letteratura della migrazione in the 1990s belong to the genre of war novels, meaning that they were written by authors who drew on autobiographical experience from their time as servicemen in Africa. As I will demonstrate, these texts did little to challenge the Italian readership into recognising the traumatic histories of the former colonies. I then introduce the term letteratura post-imperialista. Unlike the terms

that I introduced in the previous chapter like italophone, nomadic, and transnational, letteratura post-imperialista describes a specific typology of texts that repeat many of the earlier traits and racist archtypes left over from colonial literature despite being written after the independence of the colonies. I have chosen to introduce the term to illustrate how the colonial past is being represented in contemporary literature. My discussion of texts that adhere to the typology of letteratura post-imperialista can help explain the prevalence of colonial memory in contemporary Italian society. I then analyse the extent to which various genres have moved beyond outdated and unproductive stereotypes of Africa and its inhabitants. These genres include crime fiction set in the colonies, which I describe as giallo coloniale, science fiction, trauma novels (apart from the selected texts), and settler literature. I define the genre of settler literature as literature written by authors who grew up in the former colonies but are not descendants of the colonised.

Colonial memory in literature: A revival

The advent of letteratura della migrazione in the 1990s marked a significant turning point in

Italian literature. Mass migration to Italy stimulated a reappraisal of the country’s relationship with its former colonies (Lori 2013, 7). Kitty Calavita highlights that “in the late 1970s Italy’s migration stream began to reverse course, and by the early 1980s, for the first time, more immigrants entered Italy than left it” (2004, 345). As Italy shifted from being a nation of emigration to one of immigration, multiculturalism became a polemical issue in the Italian media. Italian society was forced to perceive itself as a multicultural nation due to the increased arrival of migrants. Mass migration to Italy challenged a prevailing national identity based on ethnic and cultural homogeneity. Marie Orton highlights that from the 1980s onwards migrants became increasingly visible in Italian society as “earlier waves of migrants had been chiefly

‘invisible’ domestic workers from the Philippines, Eritrea and Ethiopia. These mainly female,

Catholic migrants were perceived as much less threatening (…) than the highly visible male,

mainly Muslim, immigrants from North Africa (…) who became more widespread in the late

1980s and early 1990s” (2011, 381).

Literature has not been immune to the influence of colonial memory. Increased migration to

Italy spawned a letteratura della migrazione, a genre I examined in the introductory chapter. It also created a reactionary memorialisation of colonialism in literature. As Alessandro Triulzi discerns “the recent influx of African migrants trying to break into the fortified European citadel is widely recognised as having encouraged the present revision of the colonial past (…), an idealised and assertive colonial memory, not devoid of racist overtones, which is growing, or rather being nurtured, among the Italian public” (2006, 433). Literature has served as a space in which fantasies of Italian colonisation in Africa could be imagined and played out. As

I outline in this chapter, many texts have presented an italocentric, whitewashed vision of

Italian imperialism, previously described by Triulzi, instead of interrogating the colonial past.

These texts include Ennio Flaiano’s Tempo di uccidere (1954), Enrico Brizzi’s L’inattesa piega degli eventi (2008), and Carlo Lucarelli’s L’ottava vibrazione (2008). As if frozen in time, the vision of the colonial past that arose in literature as a response to mass migration was almost identical to that present in the literature written before the collapse of the Italian Empire11.

Nicola Labanca highlights that “today’s Italian racist collective imagination employs an old vocabulary to describe a completely new reality” (2015, 134). Many of the migrants arriving in Italy were not from the former colonies (Labanca 2015, 134). Nevertheless, jingoistic imagery of a nation besieged by a throng of immigrants pouring into “the fortified European citadel” (Labanca 2015, 433) was invoked. The lack of decolonisation had left Italian society

11An overview of colonial literature can be found in Giovanni Tomasello’s La letteratura coloniale italiana dalle avanguardie al fascismo. Palermo: Sellerio, 1984; Maria Pagliara’s Il romanzo coloniale. Tra imperialismo e rimorso. Rome: Laterza, 2001; Patrizia Palumbo’s, ed., A Place in the Sun: Africa in Italian Colonial Culture: From Post-Unification to the Present. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. For an insight into colonial literature and culture under Fascism see Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s Fascist Modernities: Italy 1922-1945. Berkeley: University of California, 2001.

unable to reimagine itself as an outward looking, multicultural nation capable of withstanding the arrival of minorities to the country. The anachronistic topoi of imperialism were resurrected to represent the influx of migrants, prompting the “circulation of stereotypes and prejuidices belonging to the past colonial experience” (Labanca 2015, 134). As colonialism reentered the national spotlight it began to permeate a variety of genres outlined over the course of this chapter. These genres are not “separated by airtight parititions” (Labanca 2015, 137) and there is significant cross-over between them. While all genres have contributed to breaking the silence over colonialism (Labanca 2015, 133) many of them still clung to archetypes left over from the colonial period.

To understand the significance of the belated engagement with colonialism by contemporary

Italy, it is necessary to illustrate its conspicuous absence from literature in the intervening years between the end of the Italian colonial enterprise in 1947 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris

(Carroli 2010, 204; Andall & Duncan 2005, 9) and the emergence of letteratura della migrazione in the 1990s. The signing of the Treaty of Paris is an arbitrary point of departure to analyse literature and does not necessarily represent the beginning of the postcolonial period.

Italy retained a strong relationship with Somalia due to the Italian trusteeship administration –

AFIS (Amministrazione fiduciaria italiana della Somalia) – which governed the country from

1950 to 1960 (Andall & Duncan 2005, 20). Nonetheless, the abrupt end of the Italian Empire could have triggered serious reflection in Italy at the time. Unfortunately, this did not happen.

Instead, the newly established Republic that emerged from the ruins of the Second World War was quick to move on from its unsavoury colonial history (Labanca 2015, 124).

The lack of a process of decolonisation

Prior to mass migration there had been few representations in literature of the former Italian colonies in Africa. According to Jacqueline Andall and Derek Duncan (2005), the lack of

representation of the Italian colonial experience can be attributed to the way in which the decolonisation in Italian Africa came about. Italy was dispossessed of its colonies by Allied

Forces during the Second World War. The defeat of Fascism by the Allies signaled the end of its colonial conquest (Andall & Duncan 2005, 19). In 1941 British forces liberated Eritrea,

Ethiopia, and Somalia (Lea & Rowe 2011, 379). Two years later, in 1943, British troops occupied Libya (Scego & Bianchi 2014, 145). Italy formally renounced its colonies four years later in 1947.

In contrast to other European nations such as France, which was forced to undergo serious reflection on its own colonial past after a turbulent and violent period of decolonisation, particularly in Algiers (Andall & Duncan 2005, 18), Italian society was not directly confronted with the aftermath of colonialism. As Andall and Duncan highlight “not only did Italian decolonization not proceed in a linear fashion, but it also assumed the form of an ‘external decolonization’ with other countries involved in the process” (2005, 19). The presence of other

Western powers during decolonisation buttressed Italy from the consequences of its own colonial legacy. Furthermore, despite spanning over sixty years, beginning under Francesco

Crispi’s Liberal government around 1885 (Andall & Duncan 2005, 9), Italian colonialism has been largely associated with and blamed on Fascism. Andall and Duncan highlight that between 1935 and 1947, Benito Mussolini’s colonial enterprise enjoyed popular support from

Italians (Andall & Duncan 2005, 9), and would largely become identified exclusively with his regime. As such, in the immediate post-war period the urgent desire of Italian society to formulate a new vision of Italian cultural identity after the ventennio nero (the fascist period) lead to a rejection of the values and propaganda associated with the regime. Italian colonialism was consigned to the annals of history as a post-war democratic Italy embraced the myth of the

Resistance and ‘i partigiani’ and shunned its authoritarian past.

Italian postwar society was also somewhat sheltered from the experiences of other former imperial nations like Britain and France. Itala Vivan highlights that works written by authors from the former British and French colonies translated into Italian gained very little attention at the time of their publication. This was due to an Italian editorial and literary establishment that had a “ruolo preponderante nell’accogliere o escludere i testi, nel tradurli e lanciarli”

(Vivan 2012, 254) into the national market. These works failed to make a significant impact on an Italian readership, such as Nigerian authors Amos Tutuola’s The Palm Wine Drinkard

(1954), Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) and Arrow of God (1964), Kenyan author

Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Weep Not, Child (1964) and A Grain of Wheat (1968) and Senegalese author Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s L’aventure ambiguë (1961) (Vivan 2012, 254). One reason for this was the failure of Italian publishers to adequately market them. Initially, when texts were translated into Italian they were not explicitly referred to with terms like postcolonial novels and lacked any clear conventions of genre. Instead, they were marketed as “nuove letterature” and “letterature emergenti” (Vivan 2012, 256). These texts were still characterised by a certain sense of exoticism and promoted as an anthropological insight into African culture, usually

“accompagnati da un’introduzione (in taluni casi nota critica) richiesta a specialisti del settore, cioè a studiosi e persone di cultura che conoscessero a fondo il background linguistico, culturale e sociopolitico in cui si collocavono e da cui nasceva la singola opera” (2012, 258).

These texts did not provide the impetus for Italian society to begin to reflect on their incursion into Africa. On the contrary, Italian society remained almost in a time-warp in relation to its colonial past.

Along with being insulated from the advent of decolonisation in other European nations an

Italian readership was presented with hardly any texts about the Italian colonial experience. As

I explain in the following paragraph, the few texts that were published before 1990 were predominantly war novels. ‘War novels’ denote texts written by vetarans who had spent time in the colonies and drew on autobiographical experience in their work (Adami 2006, 489;

Vettori 2006, 191). These include Ennio Flaiano’s Tempo di uccidere, Mario Tobino’s Il deserto della Libia (1951), and Giuseppe Berto’s Guerra in camicia nera (1967). While these texts do engage with colonialism, the trauma of the colonised is largely absent from their representations of Africa. War novels are characterised by a wistful atmosphere as Italian protagonists try to come to terms with the collapse of the Empire. In these works, the militaristic fervour of Fascism that glorified conflict and the “regenerative power of violence”

(Polezzi 2007, 49) in Africa gave way to sentiments of “perdita e la disillusione” (Lori 2013,

58) with the loss of the colonies.

These texts may have been anti-war (Polezzi 2007, 55) but they were not necessarily anti- colonial. Labanca highlights that this genre “corresponds to an apparently ex-colonial rather than post-colonial literary trend” (2015, 135). As I explain in the following section, Flaiano’s

Tempo di uccidere is a prime example of this. As the most iconic war novel to be published

(Lori 2013, 58) Flaiano’s text does little to dispel the racist stereotypes that characterised colonial literature. In war novels responsibility for the atrocities of imperialism falls on the individual rather than the collective. Protagonists appear unable or unwilling to accept responsibility for Italian colonialism at a societal level. Lori contends that many of these texts were characterised by “una svolta intimista che sottrae il tema coloniale dall’arena pubblica per trasformarlo in un fatto puramente personale, con cui i singoli e non la collettività devono fare i conti” (2013, 58). War novels failed to engender the decolonisation of Italian society partly due to this emphasis on individual culpability. While the official loss of the colonies in

1947 provided the opportunity for Italy to reflect on its colonial past, literature remained largely

silent about the butchery perpetrated by both the liberal and fascist colonial regimes in Africa.

Taken together, the historical factors that shielded Italy from its own colonial past and the few uninspiring war novels that were published did little to rouse the Italian public into any serious contemplation of the destruction that their nation’s imperial ambitions had caused in Africa.

Instead, an ossified colonial memory remained latent in the Italian collective imagination only to erupt back into consciousness with the advent of mass migration.

Post-imperialist literature

The upsurge in texts devoted to colonialism from the 1990s onwards was not limited to writers descendant from the former colonies. As mass migration brought colonialism back into the popular imagination it reignited a fascination with Italy’s imperial past. As my analysis will demonstrate, many authors from a variety of backgrounds seized upon the Italian colonial past as a backdrop for their narratives. An examination of the genres that represent the Italian colonial enterprise in Africa is pertinent to my research because they demonstrate the failures of Italian society to collectively dismantle colonial ideology. Labanca highlights that “literature is of paramount importance to truly understand the post-imperial memory in Italy today” (2015,

137)12. As I outlined in the introduction, literature has the potential to challenge or reinforce colonial memory and the racial hierarchies it invokes. Many of the works I discuss here were published at the same time as G2 texts. For example, both L’inattesa piega degli eventi by

Enrico Brizzi and L’ottava vibrazione by Carlo Lucarelli were released in the same year as

Igiaba Scego’s Oltre Babilonia. Nevertheless, many of these texts are markedly different from those written by authors descendant from the former colonies. As I will demonstrate, they tended to privilege an Italian colonial perspective and depict the Indigenous inhabitants of the colonies as supporting characters. Furthermore, many of these texts featured clichéd and racist

12 Post-imperial memory refers to the way in which colonialism is memorialised by former imperial nations (Assmann 2015, 171).

stereotypes left over from the colonial epoch. For this reason, scholars have tended to separate them from texts published by authors descendant from the former colonies (Camilotti 2014,

32; Lori 2013, 39).

Lori has proposed the term letteratura post-imperialista as a descriptor for these texts. She observes that: “Dopo il periodo delle indipendenze [delle colonie italiane, la letteratura coloniale] si biforca: letteratura post-imperialista scritta dagli autori del popolo colonizzatore e letteratura postcoloniale a opera di scrittori del popolo colonizzato” (2013, 39). I agree with

Lori that there should be a term for texts that describe Italian imperialism predominantly from the coloniser’s perspective. This perspective should be distinguished from those works written from the perspective of the colonised. However, given my discussion in the previous chapter about the debate in Italian literary studies over terminology for authors with migrant backgrounds, I think it is a mistake to concentrate exclusively on authorial identity when discussing the texts of writers with Italian ancestry. An author’s belonging to a particular group should not determine whether a text is considered post-imperialist or postcolonial. Lori contends that “una volta terminata la fase della letteratura coloniale inizia quella della letteratura post-imperialista” (2013, 44), intimating that any author of Italian descent writing after the independence of the former colonies qualifies as post-imperialist. While the biographies of authors provide an insight into their formation as a writer, birthplace and ancestry cannot determine the kind of texts they produce. Silvia Camilotti highlights that it is impossible to clearly delineate between post-imperialist and postcolonial literature based on biographical details (2014, 14). For example, writers like Gabriella Ghermandi, Ubax Cristina

Ali Farah, and Antar Mohamed are all descendant from both the “popolo colonizzatore” and the “popolo colonizzato” (Lori 2013, 39), providing them with an insight into the histories and cultures of both Italy and the former colonies. These writers complicate any distinction between

post-imperialist and postcolonial literature based on authorial identity. In my opinion, the issue of authorship and Italian cultural identity cuts both ways. It would be hypocritical for my analysis to reject the notion of italianità. A concept that defines Italian cultural identity based on “un’appartenza unicamente etnico-linguistica o giuridico-istituzionale” (Sinopoli 2013, 39), when discussing authors with migrant backgrounds only to reinforce this definition of identity when discussing authors of Italian descent. Authors of Italian ancestry must be analysed by the work they produce instead of their background.

For this reason, I interpret post-imperialist literature to be the product of a process of writing after the independence of the colonies that adheres to a specific typology inherited from the colonial era. Letteratura post-imperialista is not a genre. It is an assemblage of traits and racist archetypes found in Italian literature after the loss of the Italian colonies13. The fact that many post-imperialist writers are of Italian descent reflects the pervasiveness of the “mentalità coloniale” (Lori 2013, 41) in contemporary Italian culture and the need to promote an idea of

Italian imperialism that encompasses a colonised viewpoint. I argue that post-imperialist literature does not represent a clean break from colonial literature even though the “autori hanno gli strumenti per proporre una visione altra del mondo colonizzato a quella tramandata dalla letteratura del passato” (Camilotti 2014, 32). I will now discuss the distinctive traits and archetypes from the colonial period that have filtered down into contemporary Italian literature.

13 While it may seem inconceivable that writers who are descendant from the former Italian colonies could employ the archetypes of post-imperialist literature in their works Triulzi has highlighted the utterly unpredictable circumstances in which colonial memory is deployed. According to Triulzi, “in the ex-colonies the grassroots memory of the colonial event is increasingly vested in forgetful forms of whitewashing the brutality of colonial rule and selectively nurturing a nostalgic version of nineteenth century Euro-African encounters” (2006, 433). Triulzi provides the example of the way that Italian colonialism has in recent years been appropriated as a marker of Eritrean identity. The antipathy between Eritrea and Ethiopia has lead Eritreans to conveniently overlook their mutual oppression under Italian rule. Eritreans have drawn on their colonial past to distinguish themselves from their nemesis, Ethiopia. This serves as an example of the extrodinary circumstances in which colonial memory is being invoked, even by descendants of the former colonies.

The prevailing trait of post-imperialist texts is the italocentric perspective they employ. Post- imperialist texts continue to frame the Italian colonial enterprise from a coloniser’s point of view, with African characters having secondary roles in the narrative. While these texts do not condone Italian imperialism, they do not give adequate expression to those who suffered most from it, namely the colonised and their descendants. In post-imperialist literature: “L’immagine delle popolazioni indigene non si distanzia molto da quella coloniale (…). Essi fanno parte del paesaggio, non hanno quasi mai parola e, se protagonisti, sono sempre al servizio degli italiani o collocati in situazioni quantomeno ambigue” (Camilotti 2014, 33-34). Colonised characters are portrayed as subservient or in morally compromising roles. They are represented primarily through their physical attributes and are ascribed a bovine mindset with scant attention given to their interior lives.

As Camilotti highlights, colonised characters are often indistinguishable from the African landscape. This leads onto an archtype of post-imperialist literature – namely the

“esotizzazione ed erotizzazione delle terre (e dunque delle donne) africane” (Camilotti 2014,

21). The tendency to dehumanise colonised characters by comparing them to either the landscape or animals is another hangover from the colonial epoch. From its inception in the late nineteenth century colonial literature cultivated imagery of Africa and its inhabitants as beguiling, primordial and enigmatic with the aim of justifying the Italian incursion into the continent and to encourage immigration to the colonies (Lori 2013, 41). Africa was portrayed as “inebriating and voluptuous (…). A feast for the eyes and senses” (Ponzanesi 2005, 167).

By promoting this idea of the “sensualità selvaggia” (Camilotti 2014, 40) of the Indigenous peoples, specifically the women, colonial literature sought to whet the appetite of Italians for adventure and thrill-seeking. According to Camilotti: “Negli anni ottanta dell’Ottocento il continente africano era rappresentato come un paradiso dei sensi a portata a mano, con donne

disponibili, istintive e selvagge” (2014, 22). Denigrating indigenous women to the status of animals allowed colonial literature to propagate a vision of Africa as a place to be conquered, possessed, and domesticated. This archetype of Africa as a hedonistic playground for Italian colonialists proved to be one of the most persistent over time.

The introduction of the fascist race laws in 1938 attempted to abandon this vision of Africa as

“terra di conquista” (Camilotti 2014, 21) and discourage mixed relationships. The intoxicating splendour of the colonies and their inhabitants took on sinister associations during this period.

Africa became a place “che seduce ma anche disorienta fino alla perdizione” (Camilotti 2014,

21), with indigenous women being portrayed as putrid and syphilitic (Lori 2013, 43). The edenic backdrop of early colonial literature gave way to imagery of a morally degenerate society in which the basest of desires could be satiated. Despite the dangers of contamination and decline that miscegenation posed to the “razza civilizzatrice” (Camilotti 2014, 21), the image of the eroticised African woman remained fixed in the popular imagination (Camilotti

2014, 22). This ambivalence towards the colonies as places of “degenerazione e rigenerazione”

(Camilotti 2014, 20) continues to appear in post-imperialist literature. For example, Africa is venerated as a sensuous oasis in Erminia Dell’Oro’s Asmara addio (1988), and condemned as a venal and licentious outpost in Lucarelli’s L’ottava vibrazione.

Flaiano’s Tempo di uccidere can be considered an example of post-imperialist literature as well as a war novel. Among the texts published in the post-war period I consider Tempo di uccidere to have made the biggest impact on contemporary works depicting colonialism written from the 1990s onwards. Flaiano’s text is of critical importance for understanding post-imperialist literature. Much of his racist imagery of Africa has filtered down into more recent texts. The author’s vision of a primeval and arcane Africa is “uno dei topos più ricorrenti ancora oggi

nelle rappresentazioni del continente” (Stefani 2010, 45). The novel is set in Ethiopia under

Italian occupation and focusses on protagonist Lieutenant Silvestri who is serving in the colonial regiment. Silvestri becomes lost in the Ethiopian wilderness after his vehicle breaks down and he encounters a local woman whom he calls Mariam. The two spend the night together. The following day, Silvestri fires his gun at what he perceives to be an animal and the bullet richochets fatally wounding Mariam (Orlandi 2007, 732). Rather than saving Mariam,

Silvestri waits for her to die before disposing of the body.

Giuletta Stefani highlights that Tempo di uccidere is deeply pessimistic about Italy’s presence in Africa (2010, 44). While Flaiano does present a critical perspective of Italian colonialism, I argue that the text is a continuation of the fascist rhetoric by depicting colonial Ethiopia as a godforsaken place that lures Italian characters into moral abandon. After committing murder,

Silvestri spends much of the remainder of the text preoccupied that he has contracted leprosy from Mariam. This evokes the hysteria that contact with the colonised will result in moral and racial degeneracy. Another indication that Flaiano’s text is post-imperialist is his depiction of

Ethiopian characters. Flaiano never addresses the psychological toll of colonialism on the local population. Silvestri is portrayed as a morally bankrupt man incapable of empathy or compassion for the “abissino colonizzato” (Stefani 2010, 44). The trauma caused by his repugnant actions is never addressed by the author. Flaiano presents Mariam and other

Ethiopian characters as “appena distinguibili dal paesaggio, dei loro corpi come forme facenti parte integrante dell’ambiente” (Stefani 2010, 45). Flaiano resorts to racial stereotypes of

Ethiopians in his description of Mariam and indulges in a vision of “Africa primitiva e senza storia” (Stefani 2010, 45). Flaiano’s text is a precursor for more recent works particularly in the genre of crime fiction. As the following section illustrates, crime fiction has heavily embraced colonial memory. The preponderance of texts written in the vein of crime fiction

indicates an emerging sub-genre of giallo coloniale. Despite the renewed interest in the Italian empire, these genres tend to neglect the traumatic aftermath of colonisation, choosing to focus on the most nefarious aspects of colonial conquest.

Giallo coloniale: Colonialism in Italian crime fiction

Crime fiction is today enormously popular in Italy (Pieri 2007, 193), providing the authors writing in this genre with ample opportunity to reframe an Italian readership’s understanding of the past to recognise the immense violence that accompanied colonisation. Unfortunately, while these texts revive colonialism in contemporary Italy, “queste opere riproducono stereotipi della letteratura coloniale, ottenendo un effetto opposto rispetto a quello auspicato” (Brioni

2013, 111). As a genre, crime fiction is largely opportunistic in its portrayal of the colonial era.

These texts tend to exploit the colonial past to create salacious narratives designed to titillate the reader rather than to elicit empathy from them. According to Cristina Lombardi-Diop and

Caterina Romeo, Italian crime writers:

Adopt vividly exoticized settings shrouded in nostalgic and quasi-elegiac atmospheres where their (for the most part male) protagonists re-enact major events of colonial history (Camilleri and Lucarelli) (…). [In their texts] the parodic mimesis of the colonial past is more redemptive than critical; salvaged from oblivion, its memory is rescued less for the sake of ironic distance than for its aesthetic and sensual enjoyment” (2012, 9)14.

14 Numerous scholars have referred to celebrated Sicilian crime writer Andrea Camilleri when discussing Italian literature depicting the colonial enterprise (Lombardi-Diop & Romeo 2012, 9; Labanca 2015, 136; Lori 2013, 44). While he is consistently grouped together with authors like Lucarelli I do not consider Camilleri texts to be of interest to this research for the following reasons: Camilleri’s first text set during the colonial period, La presa di Macallè (2003), takes place during the second Italo-Abyssinian war in 1935. It tells the story of a young boy, Michelino, growing up in the fictional Sicilian town of Vigata under Fascism. Rather than depicting the bloodshed of the Italian occupation, the text portrays “come la vita quotidiana di questo paese è modificata da eventi lontani” (Brioni 2014, 281). The author’s second text set in the colonial period, Il Nipote del Negus (2010), again takes place in Vigata in 1929. This time the sleepy Sicilian town is sent into shock by the arrival of Prince Grhane Sollassié Mbasa, the nephew of the Negus (the Emperor of Ethiopia), who wracks up debt with many local businesses. Both texts are set in Sicily far away from the colonies. They are more concerned with life during the fascist epoch than they are with the devastation inflicted in Africa by colonialism.

Unlike war novels, which were written in the immediate decades after the Second World War, the giallo coloniale did not emerge until the 2000s. Despite the considerable time that had elapsed since the loss of the colonies, these texts still exhibited many of the traits and archetypes of post-imperialist literature.

A prominent example of this sub-genre is Carlo Lucarelli’s L’ottava vibrazione set in colonial

Eritrea in 1896 shortly before the battle of Adwa. Italy had begun its colonial adventure in

Eritrea in 1869 when the shipping company Società di navigazione Rubattino acquired ports in Assab Bay on the West coast of the country. The company eventually handed the bay over to the Italian government in 1882, allowing Italy to establish a foothold in Africa and begin its colonial campaign (Tripodi 1991, 18). Tensions with neighbouring Ethiopia had been simmering since 1885 when Italian troops occupied the city of Massawa and began to encroach further into Eritrea. Italian troops faced off against Ethiopian forces in the small city of Dogali outside of Massawa in 1887 (Scego & Bianchi 2014, 53). An estimated five hundred and forty troops died at Dogali, forcing Italy to take notice of Ethiopia’s power in the region (Del Boca

1976, 240). Two years later, in 1889, Italy brokered the Treaty of Wechale with Sahle Mariam, later Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia, recognising the country’s sovereignty. The treaty momentarily diffused tensions between Italy and Ethiopia, allowing the former to proclaim

Eritrea as a colony in 1890 (Lea & Rowe 2011, 166). Three years later Menelik II annulled the treaty realising that Italy had no intention of respecting Ethiopia’s statehood. Italian forces launched a sustained attack on the Ethiopian Empire from their colonial stronghold in Eritrea but were defeated in Amba Alagi, Macallè and finally Adwa. The battle of Adwa was particularly humiliating for Italy as it represented the worst defeat of a European colonial army by indigenous troops in history (Tripodi 1991, 25). Lucarelli depicts an incompetent and fumbling Italian regime unaware of the impending catastrophe.

The text follows an ensemble of characters including the brigadiere Serra – an undercover policeman on the hunt for a serial killer with a predilection for murdering children; Vittorio – a corrupt official smuggling contraband into the colony; and Cristina – the wife of a wealthy industrialist who conspires to have a love affair with Vittorio (Stefani 2010, 50). I consider

Lucarelli’s indictment of Italian imperialism to be sadly let down by the “mancanza di reciproca conoscenza italo-africana” (Stefani 2010, 53). There are few colonised perspectives in the text and those that are present are clichéd and pejorative. For example, Vittorio is having an affair with a local prostitute, Aicha. Aicha speaks an indecipherable language and remains mute throughout the text. Like Mariam in Tempo di uccidere, she is described with animal metaphors and compared with a panther and jackal. In both texts “niente, o molto poco, ci è detto rispetto al loro mondo interiore: rimangono immagini, corpi, talvolta creature animalesche (…) sostanzialmente sempre senza carattere e senza anima” (Stefani 2010, 49). Readers are not given access into the inner lives of these characters and must make do with superficial descriptions.

Davide Longo’s Un mattino a Irgalem (2001), set in 1936, also repeats many of the archetypes inherited from colonial literature under Fascism. Local men are portrayed in subservient roles as gardeners and waiters, and local women are depicted as prostitutes or as sexually available to Italian men (Camilotti 2014, 47). Like Flaiano, Longo represents Ethiopia as a backwater rife with impropriety. The protagonist is a military lawyer, Pietro Bailo, who becomes ensnared in the debauchery and criminality of the colony. He contracts syphilis from his Ethiopian mistress, Teferi, and murders another Italian soldier, Sancho, who is also sleeping with her. As

Sandra Ponzanesi highlights, Bailo murders Sancho by slitting his throat, the same method used by the loathsome sergeant Prochet. Bailo is sent to the colony to investigate Prochet – a

man accused of killing Ethiopian locals and Italian soldiers (2005, 178). After spending time in the colony Bailo is guilty of committing the same crime as his suspect, reinforcing the impression of Africa as a place where Italian characters inevitably surrender to their desires, culminating in their demise.

More recently, Lucarelli has published two more texts set in colonial Eritrea at the turn of the twentieth century: Albergo Italia (2014) and Il tempo delle iene (2015). Lucarelli’s subsequent texts do not reiterate the stereotypes inherited from colonial literature illustrating an evolution in his writing. Both texts focus on Captain Piero Colaprico and his sidekick, the indigenous brigadier or ‘zaptiè’ Ogbagabriel Ogba. Unlike Aicha, Ogba is a fully formed character fluent in Italian and Tigray. Rather than being depicted with animal metaphors, Ogba is represented as “lo Sherlock Holmes abissino” (Lucarelli 2014, 11) who is perspicacious and adroit, often picking up clues that Colaprico misses. Despite abandoning his earlier chauvinistic colonial perspective, Eritrea appears to be little more than a convenient backdrop for Lucarelli to stage the most gruesome of crimes in these two texts.

Lucarelli’s lack of engagement with trauma appears to be symptomatic of the genre as a whole, making the giallo coloniale inappropriate for my research. Another example of this is Giorgio

Ballario’s trilogy. Like Lucarelli’s texts, Ballario’s first volume of this trilogy, Morire è un attimo. L’indagine del maggiore Morosini nell’Eritrea italiana (2008), is also set in colonial

Eritrea. The narrative unfolds in the fascist epoch shortly before the Italian occupation of

Ethiopia. Italian colonisation took on new and more overtly aggressive characteristics under

Fascism. According to Paolo Tripodi, Mussolini gradually moved towards a policy of “colonial authoritarianism” (1991, 38) in Africa. Italy mounted a bloody attack on Ethiopia in 1935.

Morire è un attimo. L’indagine del maggiore Morosini nell’Eritrea italiana takes place as

Italian forces were primed for battle, eager to possess the colony that had alluded them since their loss at Adwa. Colonial Eritrea is brimming with suspicion as Italian troops prepare to mount an offensive against the Abyssinian Empire and Ethiopian operatives are suspected of decapitating two Italians, a crime that detective Aldo Morosini and his two sidekicks, officer

Barbagallo and the indigenous troop or ascari Tesfaghì, are charged with investigating. Una donna di troppo. La seconda indagine del maggiore Aldo Morosini nell’Africa Orientiale

Italiana (2009) follows detective Morosini and his sidekicks to colonial Somalia during Italian general Rodolfo Graziani’s offensive on Ethiopia. Le rose di Axum. Un indagine del maggiore

Morosini (2012) unfolds a year later in 1936 when colonial forces entered Addis Ababa and proclaimed the birth of an Italian Empire.

Despite setting his texts during some of the most brutal moments of Italian colonial history,

Ballario does not address in any substantive way the psychological effects of colonisation on characters. Like Lucarelli, Ballario’s texts feature heinous acts of murder and torture. Yet there is little attention given to the larger crimes perpetrated by Italian forces. For example, Italy engaged in seven months of vicious warfare with Ethiopia, including the use of chemical weapons that were banned by international conventions. Ethiopians reacted by forming a resistance movement to challenge Italian rule (Scego & Bianchi 2014, 142). In retaliation,

Italian troops launched a ruthless operation to eradicate any rebel groups. The attacks on rebel forces were so barbarous that they were considered “a tragedy that bordered on genocide”

(Tripodi 1991, 41) by Ethiopians. Alfredo González-Ruibal describes the abhorrent tactics used by Italian troops against the local population. These included “indiscriminate massacres, mutilation and emasculation of corpses, widespread execution of resistance fighters, torture and confinement of Ethiopians in concentration camps (including women and children), the use of poison gas at a mass scale, and air bombings” (2010, 552). These tragic events remain

peripheral in Ballario’s work, further highlighting that crime writers have not taken up the mantle of challenging their readership with uncompromising depictions of Italian colonialism.

For the most part their texts revel in the high drama of historical events like the battle of Adwa and the occupation of Ethiopia and are replete with racist archetypes inherited from colonial literature. By contrast, science fiction remains a promising though underutilised genre for reimagining the colonial past.

Science Fiction

As I have illustrated, there are now enough texts within the genre of crime fiction concerned with the colonial past to constitute a specific sub-genre of the giallo coloniale. Other genres like science fiction have payed little attention to the colonial past with the notable exception of

Enrico Brizzi’s L’inattesa piega degli eventi, which is the first book in a trilogy of texts15.

Despite being the only text in the wider genre of science fiction to represent Italian colonialism

L’inattesa piega degli eventi warrants serious consideration here. It provides a completely unique portrait of the colonies by drawing on uchronia (Brioni 2015, 310). Uchronia refers to

“an alternative history where events occur differently from reality” (Clò 2017, 116). All three texts in the trilogy centre on the protagonist Lorenzo Pellegrini and unfold in an alternative reality in which fascist Italy sided with the Allies against Nazi Germany and survived WW2.

By depicting a fictional alternative universe in which Italian imperialism never ended, Brizzi demonstrates to readers the influence that colonial memory still exerts over the relationship between Italy and its former colonies.

In L’inattesa piega degli eventi the year is 1960 and Italy retains control of its colonies, which are now referred to as Associate Republics. In opposition to the giallo coloniale uchronia

15L’inattesa piega degli eventi is followed by La nostra guerra. Milan: Dalai editore, 2009, and Lorenzo Pellegrini e le donne. Milan: Italica edizioni, 2012.

reveals how little has changed since the loss of the colonies regarding prevailing attitudes towards Africa and its inhabitants. Lorenzo Pellegrini, a sports journalist, is assigned to cover the soccer league Serie Africa in Asmara and Addis Ababa. Pellegrini reports on the winning team San Giorgio Addis Ababa who are sent to Italy to face off against Juventus F.C., the winners of the Italian Serie A. Pellegrini encounters a strict racial hierarchy in the Associate

Republics and observes the bigotry African players are subjected to when they are heckled by monkey screams as they enter onto Italian soccer pitches (Brioni 2014, 58). Simone Brioni applauds Brizzi’s use of sport as a means of exposing prejudice in contemporary Italy as a vestige of the imperial past: “The choice to write a novel about soccer to question the legacy of colonialism and institutionalised racism in Italy seems to respond to historian Angelo Del

Boca’s call for novelists to decolonise the Italian imagination by raising historical awareness of colonialism and its crimes through fictional narrative” (2015, 310). Brizzi makes his text instantly relatable to many Italian readers by focussing on the popular national pastime of soccer. The text encourages an Italian audience to realise that stereotypes about real life black players are in part the product of colonial ideology16. By employing uchronia Brizzi does more than Italian crime writers to decolonise Italian literature. Uchronia allows him to bring attention to the ongoing plight of the descendants of the colonised who still encounter much of the racist rhetoric faced by their ancestors. While colonialism is portrayed in crime fiction primarily to arouse the interest of readers, Brizzi utilises the allegorical nature of uchronia to critique contemporary Italy.

One significant drawback of Brizzi’s work is his lack of colonised perspectives. The author squanders his opportunity to represent the effects of trauma on the denizens of the Associate

16 For more information about the debate and controversies surrounding racism and soccer in contemporary Italy see Brioni, Simone. “Fantahistorical vs. Fantafascist Epic: “Contemporary”Alternative Italian Colonial Histories.” Science Fiction Studies 42:2 (2015): 305-321.

Republics. Silvia Camilotti argues that Brizzi falls into the same trap as Lucarelli by narrating the plight of colonial subjects primarily from an Italian viewpoint (2014, 58). While Pellegrini is sympathetic towards the African players, the author nonetheless deprives them of articulating their own experience. Despite his failings in this regard Brizzi’s work represents a milestone in Italian literature. It avoids many of the traits and archetypes left over from colonial literature that writers of crime fiction have flagrantly embraced. Brizzi is not alone in transcending many of the trappings of post-imperialist literature. Mario Domenichelli’s Lugemalé (2005) also abandons many of these traits and archtypes in his depiction of Somalia. Along with Brizzi,

Domenichelli is arguably the only author of Italian descent to challenge colonial memory. The publication of Lugemalé is one indication that the post-imperialist vision of the colonies is on the wane despite its tenacious grip on contemporary Italian literature. Unlike Italian crime writers, who have tended to rehabilitate the colonial past without questioning its impact on contemporary society, Domenichelli is aware of the need to confront readers rather than simply entertain them. Domenichelli has capitalised on the role that literature can play in recasting the relationship between Italy and Africa to incorporate the legacy of unresolved trauma that weds the former empire to its colonies. Lugemalé can be compared with the works of Ubax Cristina

Ali Farah and Kaha Mohamed Aden, listed below. All three authors explain the tremendous psychological toll that violence, upheavel, and sectarianism had on Somali characters. They present complex, multifaceted texts that highlight the trauma endured by those who are descendant from the former colonies, leading me to term them trauma novels. The fact that

Domenichelli’s Lugemalé can be compared with the works of Farah and Aden, who are descendant from the former colonies (Gerrand 2008, 275; Brioni 2013, 322), illustrates that authorial identity is not a presiding factor in the type of texts that are produced. Authors with only Italian ancestry can engage with the trauma of the colonised and their descendants.

Trauma novels

As trauma novels, the texts of Domenichelli, Farah, and Aden delve into the protagonists’ fractured lives revealing the effects of trauma. These trauma novels do not monopolise Africa as an exciting backdrop and foreground themes of grief, anomie, and crisis. The works of

Domenichelli, Farah, and Aden will not form part of the corpus of texts that I have selected for my research. Nevertheless, they are worth discussing to provide a clearer understanding of the genre of trauma novels and their role in challenging colonial memory. The selected works depict the trauma of the colonial and postcolonial histories of Somalia and Ethiopia. In contrast, the works of Domenichelli, Farah, and Aden only focus on the trauma of the postcolonial history of Somalia beginning with the collapse of Siad Barre’s dictatorship and the civil war in

Somalia. Conflict erupted in Somalia in January 1991 when Siad Barre was ousted by militia groups (Lewis 2002, 207). Rather than enjoying newfound peace and stability, the situation arguably worsened for Somalis in the wake of the dictatorship. Adekeye Adebajo affirms that after Barre fled Mogadishu “the central government collapsed (…) and a myriad of warlords fought for control of local fiefdoms” (2003, 68). An estimated “500,000 people died from violence, starvation and diseases” (Dagne 2010, 24) during the civil war. For those who survived the situation was not much better. The end of authoritarianism created a power vacuum and Somalia descended into a state of anarchy. Ted Dagne states that civil war “created an environment conducive to the proliferation of armed factions throughout the country” (2010,

5). Somalia disintegrated during the conflict and was for many years considered a failed state

(Gerrand 2016, 22).

Lugemalé is told from the perspective of Valerio who has been working at the University of

Mogadishu. After travelling back to Rome, he receives a letter from his enigmatic friend Tomas

Maldrendondo soliciting him to read an accompanying manuscript. Valerio soon learns that

Malrendondo has been murdered either by Barre’s militia or Islamic extrememists. Somalia becomes too dangerous to return to and Malrendondo’s manuscript becomes a testimony of his friend’s last months alive and the country’s traumatic dissent into civil war. By reading the manuscript Valerio acts as an intermediary bringing the testimony of Malrendondo, which would otherwise be lost, to an Italian readership: “È come la voce di Malrendondo parlasse attraverso la mia bocca. È nel mio cuore che c’è la sua tomba. Anche io sono divenuto un cimitero vivente” (Domenichelli 2005, 47). Despite these elements of witnessing, Italian readers unfamiliar with Somalia may be unable to comprehend the full impact of the conflict raging in Somalia without an explanation of the trauma of colonisation that preceded the reign of Siad Barre and the civil war.

Aden’s 2010 text Fra-intendimenti perfectly distils the complete atomisation of Somali society due to the clan conflict that erupted with the collapse of the Barre dictatorship. For example, the short story ‘La casa con l’albero: tra il Giusto e il Bene’ centres on Aisha, who flees

Mogadishu with her six children to escape the imminent threat of clan based violence in 1991.

Aisha decides to return to her home in search of her husband Magan, whom she discovers lying dead in a pool of his own blood being gnawed on by a group of feral cats. Sadly, his belonging to the Marrehan clan leads to Magan’s unceremonious death leaving Aisha widowed and his six children orphaned. While stories like that of Aisha recount the immense horror of living through civil war they do not explicitly address prior traumas inflicted on Somalia to illustrate to readers the pattern of relentless violence suffered over generations.

The same can be said for Farah’s texts Madre piccola (2007) and Il comandante del fiume

(2014). Both are set in Italy and present the experience of the Somali diaspora in the years after

Somali refugees fled the conflict. Farah’s texts provide a snapshot into the turmoil that has

engulfed Somalia since the outbreak of civil war. Madre piccola represents the remarkable tenacity of the Somali diaspora in the face of overwhelming adversity. The text is told from three perspectives – that of Domenica Axad, Barni and Barni’s husband Taageere that appear in a circular motion throughout the text. This illustrates the interconnectedness of these narratives, situating personal stories within the broader history of the Somali diaspora after the civil war.

Farah’s second text Il comandante del fiume delves into the traumatic aftereffects of war on the children of the Somali diaspora, like the protagonist Yabar, growing up outside of their homeland. Yabar is raised in Rome by his single mother Zahra. He is a rebellious teen who longs to know more about his father, a man who abandoned him and his mother and returned to Somalia to fight in the conflict. Despite not having lived through the conflict directly Yabar is still deeply affected by it. His family is torn apart by war. Yabar’s connection to Somalia and his father is mediated through his mother. Zahra is unwilling to confide her past in him and removes any evidence of his father from the house. Yabar finds the silence surrounding his father debilitating and he is unable to make sense of his Somali identity growing up in contemporary Rome. Farah’s text sheds light on the impact that the unresolved grief of a generation of Somalis who had escaped the civil war has had on children of the diaspora growing up in Italy.

While Farah deflty captures the underlying tension between generations of Somalis like Zahra and Yabar, she does not reach further into the past to depict characters living during Italian colonialism. According to Lori, it is common for authors of Somali descent to refrain from representing Italian colonialism directly: “Nei romanzi somali questo non compare di frequente in modo diretto. Mancano, infatti, trattazioni specifiche degli anni del colonialismo italiano: è

più comune che essi emergano all’interno di paragone fra il ‘prima’ e il ‘dopo’ oppure nella descrizione delle loro conseguenze sulla situazioni in Somalia dopo l’indipendenza” (2013,

82). There are echoes of Italian colonialism in Farah’s texts. For example, Yabar comments on

Italians’ indifference towards its colonial past: “[Non] ne vogliono sapere niente di noi (…)

Noi cresciuti qui, figli di genitori eritrei, etiopi, somali, le ex colonie insomma. Gli italiani manco sanno che esistiamo” (Farah 2014, 145) but colonialism never features directly in the texts. Echos of colonialism can also be found in Lugemalé. The protagonist Valerio’s view of

Italian colonialism in Somalia is laced with a bitter irony: “Il ricordo che ha lasciato il nostro esercito in Somalia non è dei migliori, a quanto pare, tra torture, stupri militarmente acconci effetuati con razzi (…). Ma certo si trattava di casi particolari, perché noi italiani siamo brava gente, e ci siamo comportati come meglio non avremmo potuto, o così si dice, è tutto dimenticato e non se ne parla più” (Domenichelli 2005, 264). In contrast, the selected texts account for the trauma of the colonial and postcolonial period by depicting events like imperialism, dictatorship, and civil war in Somalia and Ethiopia, which are linked via the symptoms of trauma that are passed down from one generation to the next.

Settler literature

The final genre I turn to in my anaylsis is settler literature – that is literature produced by former settlers of the Italian colonies or their offspring. Authors of settler literature draw directly from autobiographical experience in their depiction of colonialism. Labanca highlights that the genre of settler literature has tended to be ignored by scholars in Italian literary studies due to the

“modest literary quality” (2015, 135) of many of the texts. These include the anthology Acqua di fonte fra le rocce: antologia di scrittori asmarini (1996) published by Mai Tacli – a

collective dedicated to remembering the Italian community in Eritrea17, the works of Francesco

Prestopino - Sabbia, sudore, sogni: la Libia negli scritti degli italiani di Libia, 1943-1999

(2001) and Versi sulla sabbia: la poetica coloniale di Libia (2003), that recount the Italian experience in Libya. There are a few notable exceptions in the genre of settler literature that have captured the attention of scholars. These include Luciana Capretti’s Ghibli (2004),

Alessandro Spina’s I confini dell’ombra: In terra d’oltremare (2006), and Dell’Oro’s extensive corpus, including works for children and young adults. None of the texts discussed in this section are set in Somalia and Ethiopia. I have chosen to include them in my discussion of genres that depict the Italian colonial enterprise to illustrate their impact on contemporary

Italian literature, and to reinforce the distinctiveness of the selected works.

Settler literature provides valuable insight into Italian colonisations from authors who have grown up in Africa but are not descendant from the colonised. An analysis of settler literature illustrates the extent to which authors who have experienced life in the former colonies have followed a different trajectory in terms of their writing. Unlike authors writing in Italy who have been largely insulated from the traumatic histories of the former colonies, settler authors have experienced them firsthand. While I do not intend to dwell on the biographies of these authors, their time in the former colonies has informed their writing and should be briefly mentioned. Spina, the pseudonym of Basili Shafik Khouzam, was born in the coastal city of

Benghazi to Maronite parents originally from Aleppo, Syria and Capretti was born in the

Libyan capital Tripoli to Italian parents. Both these authors focus on the turbulent history of

17 The Mai Tacli collective produce a bimonthly periodical writen for former Italian inhabitants of Eritrea. Their mission is outlined on their website http://www.maitacli.it/. For more information about the Mai Tacli collective consult Charles Burdett’s book chapter “Colonial Associations and the Memory of East Africa” in Italian Colonialism: Legacy and Memory. Eds. Andall, J & Derek Duncan. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2005; Angelo Del Boca’s introduction to La nostra Africa: nel racconto di cinquanta italiani che l’hanno percorsa, esplorata e amata. Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 2003; and L’Africa nella coscienza degli italiani. Miti, memorie, errori, sconfitte. Milan: Mondadori, 2002, also by Del Boca.

Libya during and after colonialism. Italy turned its attention to Libya in 1911. The government launched an attack against the Ottoman Empire for control of the cities of Cyrenaica and

Tripolitania. Despite initially resisting Italian advances, Turkey relinquished Libya to Italy in

1912. Libya was proclaimed an Italian colony a year later (Scego & Bianchi 2014, 140).

Spina’s sprawling opus I confini dell’ombra is comprised of six novels, a novella, and four collections of stories and depicts Libya from the Italian occupation in 1911 to the country’s independence to the coup of Muammar Gaddafi in 1969 (Dagnino 2016, 4). It should be noted that Spina had been publishing since the 1960s but it was not until 2006 that he gained acclaim with the publication of an omnibus edition of his work (Dagnino 2016, 4). The belated recognition of Spina’s work reflects a growing awareness in Italian society of its colonial past.

The same can be said for Erminia Dell’Oro’s writing. Dell’Oro was born in Asmara to Italian parents. While Dell’Oro can today be thought of as one of many authors discussing colonialism, when she began writing in the 1980s she considered herself to be a lone voice on the topic: “Arrivata in Italia mi ero accorta che quasi nessuno conosceva la storia delle colonie in Africa. Era una fetta del nostro passato di cui nessuno sapeva o voleva sapere nulla. Le nostre colonie erano piccole, perse in fretta, populati soprattutto da fascisti…non c’era letteratura su questo argomento” (Riccardi 2013).

Both authors began their literary careers before letteratura della migrazione took off in the

1990s. I consider Spina’s and Dell’Oro’s precocious engagement with colonialism as an indication that settler authors have been generally more willing to address trauma than texts written by authors who have grown up in Italy. Indeed, Spina’s first novel of the omnibus, Il giovane maronita (originally published in 1971), portrays the traumatic aftermath of the 1911 war and the initial phase of colonisation (1911-1929) during which over 100,000 Libyans were

deported to concentration camps, many dying of disease or starvation (Dagnino 2016, 5;

Labanca 2015, 131). The story is told primarily from the perspective of a young merchant from

Aleppo Émile Chebas. Émile’s position as an outsider allows him to navigate the complex melange of Libyan, Ottoman, and Italian cultures. Like his character, Spina occupies a “neutral space of unbelonging” (Dagnino 2016, 7) as the son of Syrian émigrés, affording him the opportunity to move through Italian and Libyan cultures rather than residing within them. This allows the author to produce complex texts that delve into a variety of characters’ lives. For example, Le nozze di Omar (originally published in 1973) focusses on the Italian Vice

Governor of Libya Count Alonzo, while his short story “Il visitatore notturno” is told from the perspective of a Libyan protagonist Hassan. Camilotti discerns that Spina’s texts have “il merito di aprire la letteratura italiana contemporanea al tema del colonialismo in Africa senza concessioni al colore locale, esotismi o autocelebrazioni” (2014, 14). Given that Spina’s portrait of colonial and postcolonial Libya spans a series of texts encompassing different characters and locales, it is difficult to compare his omnibus with the texts I have chosen for my research, which all follow one set of characters. For this reason, Spina’s works will not be included in my corpus of selected texts.

Similarly to Spina, Capretti’s work Ghibli represents Libya without pandering to colonial rhetoric or omitting the perspectives of the local population. Ghibli depicts the “anno della jalaa” (Camilotti 2014, 12) when Italian settlers were expelled from Libya on the orders of

Muammar Gaddafi in 1969. The text initially remembers Libya with a fondness that borders on nostalgia for possession of the ex-colony: “Tripoli era dolce, per gli italiani. Dolce come i datteri che maturano lì, nel caldo torrido, e diventano vischiosi di zucchero, morbidi di abbandono, odorosi di deserto, mare, Africa” (Capretti 2004, 17). The sensuous description of the dates evokes imagery found in early colonial literature of Africa as a feast for the senses.

Libya appears as an idealised haven for Italians. Capretti counters this yearning for a bygone empire. Throughout the novel, she reveals the trauma of Libyans under colonialism and the trauma felt by the Italian settler community, who were expelled from the country. These traumas richochet off and inform one another. Caprettti does not give one trauma preference over the other and they are represented equally. The terror experienced by both populations is encapsulated in the following quote: “Gli italiani aspettavano il permesso di partire. E la storia ripetersi (…). Eppure un tempo era stato doloroso presente e che i libici non volevano, non potevano dimenticare” (Capretti 2004, 164). While Ghibli illustrates that the trauma of the colonisation and that of the Italian settler population are interconnected Capretti’s emphasis is primarily on the latter, which is not the trauma that is the focus of this research. My research concentrates on trauma novels that enable Italian readers to understand the trauma of the colonised, not the coloniser. Ghibli does not reveal the way in which the trauma of colonisation continues to effect successive generations of Libyans.

In parallel to Capretti, the trauma of Eritreans under colonialism is intertwined with the the trauma of Italian Jews fleeing Fascism in many of the works by Dell’Oro. The author’s debut novel Asmara addio (1988) as well as her subsequent work Il fiore di Merara (1994) feature the plight of Italian Jewish families escaping rising anti-Semitism in Italy by migrating to colonial Eritrea. The Conti family in Asmara addio and Andrei and Saba, the two brothers in

Il fiore di Merara view Eritrea as an “Italia meno fascista e meno antisemita nella colonia”

(Comberiati 2008, 54). Dell’Oro weaves together these two traumas to demonstrate the multiple injustices suffered under Fascism. It is impossible to disentangle the two traumas of colonialism and the Holocaust, making these texts outside of the remit of my research – given my focus is on intergenerational trauma plaguing the descendants of the colonised.

Dell’Oro’s oeuvre provides an insight into the propensity of authors in the genre of settler literature to interrogate their own autobiographical experiences through literature. Like

Capretti, Dell’Oro initially evokes the imagery of early colonial literature. Milena, the protagonists of Asmara addio enjoys a charmed existence. Eritrea is wonderland ripe with a profusion of exotic sites, smells, and tastes, which may be remiscient of the author’s own childhood in the former colony. The author continually revisits similar themes and locations in her work (Comberiati 2008, 55). Her later text Vedere ogni notte le stelle (2010) also features a woman called Milena who returns to Eritrea after the death of her mother, reawakening memories of her childhood there. In Asmara addio, Dell’Oro’s romanticisation of Eritrea is shortlived as the misery of the local inhabitants encroaches into Milena’s idyllic childhood:

“[l’Eritrea] era viva, era allegra, risuonava di voci e colori. Eravamo troppo giovani e felici per vedere le sue miserie; correndo dietro allo struzzo che trascinava un carretto con sopra una scimmia e una gallinella spaurita, non badavamo al bambino affamato che ci guardava"

(Dell’Oro 1988, 305). The narrator only realises in hindsight the immense suffering she was surrounded by as a child. Scholars have reacted differently to Dell’Oro’s work. Silvia Camilotti argues that Milena’s blinkered view of the world does not elide the trauma of Eritreans:

“Asmara addio è un romanzo carico di nostalgia (…) la condizione di indiscutibile privilegio dell’io narrante non ne oscura la capacità critica né empatica” (2014, 91). Meanwhile, Loredana

Polezzi views Milena’s venture into the lives of Eritreans as an overly naïve and fanciful representation of colonialism. In which the “historical circumstances [of colonialism] are at least distorted, if not rendered invisible (…). The native home is more often than not narrated in such non-realist tones, becoming a quasi-mythical and unified space in which poverty, illness and death (…) are personifications of an inherently negative human condition” (2006,

155). For Polezzi, Dell’Oro cushions the blow of colonialism by narrating trauma from this

innocent, juvenile perspective of an Italian protagonist. She extends this criticism to the author’s writing for children and young adults.

Dell’Oro has also had a prolific career as a children’s author having written over twenty children’s books. Her substantial body of work provides children and young adults with an insight into the history of Eritrea. In a 2003 interview the author explains: “Ho scitto numerosi libri per bambini e in tutti c’è un messaggio forte e chiaro: contro la guerra, contro il razzismo”

(Riccardi 2003). La gola del diavolo (1999), Dall’altra parte del mare (2005), and Il mare davanti (2016) are aimed at children and young adults. Like Milena in Asmara addio Lù, the protagonist of La gola del diavolo occupies a privledged position as the daughter of colonial settlers and only gains access to the suffering of Eritreans through her friendship with a local disabled boy Aptè. Lù’s foray into the plight of the local population is ultimately cut short when Aptè dies saving her from the perils of a torrential downpour on the way to the Devil’s

Gorge. For Polezzi, La gola del diavolo exhibits the same shortcomings as Asmara addio.

While the trauma of the Eritrean community is present in the texts it only momentarily impinges on Milena and Lù’s upbringing, “leaving the protagonists of these stories intact, undivided, almost untouched in their childhood ‘purity’” (Polezzi 2006, 156). Dell’Oro partly remedies this in her later texts. Dall’altra parte del mare and Il mare davanti bypass Italian characters altogether. In Dall’altra parte del mare the trauma of Eritreans is no longer mediated by an Italian protagonist. Instead the work presents a young Eritrean girl Elen who is making the perilous voyage to Italy with her mother. The narrative is punctuated by flashbacks to the brutal war between Eritrea and Ethiopia that precipitated Elen’s migration. Dell’Oro repeats the same narrative in her work Il mare davanti, which focusses on another young Eritrean,

Ziggy, who escapes the military dictatorship in Eritrea to Italy. Like Aden, Domenichelli, and

Farah Dell’Oro only glimpses the trauma endured by Eritreans over generations by depicting

protagonists’ experiences of war, dictatorship, and migration. Dell’Oro’s portrait of postcolonial Eritrea undoubtedly helps young readers to understand why characters like Elen and Ziggy decide to risk their lives and travel to Europe. Nevertheless, her readers are unable to comprehend the full extent of Italy’s involvement in the tragic history of Eritea.

Dell’Oro does provide an account of Eritrea’s traumatic colonial and postcolonial history in

L’abbandono: una storia Eritrea (1991). The text concentrates on Eritrean characters and the plight of meticcio children Marianna and Gianfranco growing up in Eritrea after their Italian father Carlo abandoned them. After the defeat of Italian forces, the British refused to recognise

“Eritreans as a people worthy of a state of their own” (Kibreab 2009, 1). They sided with their neighbouring ally Ethiopia who laid claim to Eritrea. The country was federated with Ethiopia in 1950 and later annexed by Emperor Haile Selassie in 1962, leading Eritrean resistance to declare a war of independence that would last for the next thirty years. The text is told predmoninantly from the perspective of Marianna and her mother Sellass. It draws parallels with both Timira and Oltre Babilonia in its depiction of a mother-daughter relationship to document the reverberations of trauma across generations.

Initially, Sellass assumes the role of the narrator to chronicle her descent into poverty and servitude after Carlo left. Sellass becomes resentful of her children due to their Italian heritage.

Rather than confiding her pain in her daughter, Sellass grows hostile and occasionally violent towards Marianna: “Aveva un assurdo desiderio di picchiare Marianna, di insultarla, faceva un grande sforzo per controllarsi e spesso non ci riusciva” (Dell’Oro 1991, 111). Unable to harness witnessing as a means of articulating her trauma, Sellass is gradually reduced to silence. At which point the narrative switches to Marianna’s perspective. Irene Zanini-Cordi notes that:

“Il personaggio di Sellass non è più fruibile come focalizzatore della narrazione perché non

riesce a raccontare, raccontarsi: è bloccato” (2008, 67). Instead of engaging her daughter in witnessing to externalise her pain Sellass lashes out at her children, perpetuating the trauma inflicted on her by Carlo. The relationship between the two women deteriorates to the point that Sellass destroys the note of paternity Carlo left to grant Italian citizenship to Marianna and

Gianfranco. A desperate Marianna convinces an Italian carpenter to let her use his name to acquire citizenship and she migrates to Italy, leaving her mother Sellass in Eritrea to experience war.

With Marianna gone, Sellass regains her role as a narrator, allowing Dell’Oro to chronicle the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia: “Ora i guerriglieri erano entrati in città, per tentare di riconquistarla; ovunque si sentivano spari, i soldati etiopici forzavano case e massacravano intere famiglie (…) Gli etiopici stavano confiscando tutto, gli eritrei continuavano a morire”

(Dell’Oro 2006, 257-258). It is Marianna’s flight from her mother and Eritrea that offers her an escape from trauma. Marianna’s journey is the obverse of Isabella’s in Timira. As I explain in the following chapter, Isabella resolves to reconnect with her traumatic Somali heritage by locating her biological mother. In contrast, Marianna is determined to abandon Sellass and the trauma she embodies by embracing the Italian identity her mother tried to deny her. Charles

Burdett observes that Marianna is relatively efficacious in avoiding the pain of her past:

“Marianna emerges psychologically unscathed from the difficulties of her childhood and succeeds in her endeavour to pursue a career in Italy” (2005, 138). While the tumult of Eritrean history is on full display in L’abbandono: una storia Eritrea characters do not attempt to overcome their trauma through witnessing, therefore not eliciting witnessing and understanding from Italian readers.

All the authors examined in the genre of settler literature display a certain sensitivity towards the plight of the colonised and their descendants. A sensitivity that, I argue, is somewhat lacking in other genres like crime fiction. This further illustrates that different genres can offer different insights into the Italian colonial enterprise. My analysis has demonstrated that authors writing certain genres like settler literature have more readily addressed the traumatic legacy of Italian colonialism in Africa than peers writing crime or science fiction. In contrast to authors like Lucarelli and Ballario, who have a penchant for sensationalising the colonial past, Spina,

Capretti, and Dell’Oro assimilate the trauma of Libyans and Eritreans into their recollections of the colonies. For Spina, this may be partly because of his status as an outsider, which allowed him to slip between the Italian, Libyan, and Ottoman cultures in his exploration of the colonial encounter. For Dell’Oro and Capretti, reconciling their childhoods in the former colonies with the trauma experienced by the local populace may have been a more arduous task. As evidenced by Polezzi, Dell’Oro has, at times, been guilty of shielding her Italian protagonists from the full brunt of colonial violence. Nevertheless, authors in the genre of settler literature have, in general, been far more open to depicting trauma than their peers writing inside of Italy.

Chapter two has illustrated that the texts I have chosen to study have grown out of a rich, diverse, and controversial body of literature dedicated to the Italian colonial past. This literature emerged primarily as a response to the influx of migrants into Italy from the 1990s onwards

(Labanca 2015, 132). The vision of the former colonies that resurfaced in these texts closely resembled a racist, chauvinistic imagery of Africa present in literature written before the independence of the colonies. I have referred to texts that feature an assortment of traits and archetypes of Africans as letteratura post-imperialista. I illustrated that one possible explanation for the persistence of these traits and archetypes in literature was Italy’s lack of decolonisation. In this chapter I examined the genres in contemporary Italian literature that

depict colonialism and its aftermath. I explored how different genres like science fiction or settler literature have provided differing perspectives on the colonial past and drew attention to the genre of trauma novels. I demonstrated that trauma novels have resisted the traits and archtypes of letteratura post-imperialista to present complex and variegated portrait of Africa that acknowledges the trauma of the colonial experience. Within the genre of trauma novels, a select few texts deal specifically with intergenerational trauma, which is trauma that goes unresolved and intensifies over generations. In the following chapter I examine the presence of intergenerational trauma in the selected texts to illustrate their unique contribution to Italian literature.

Chapter 3 - Intergenerational Trauma

Qual è l’inizio di un individuo? (…) La sua nascita? O forse qualcosa che la precede? (…). Il nostro inizio è l’inizio di altri prima di noi (…). [E] di altri dopo di noi (…).Volevo farti sapere che la tua storia di donna è legata a una storia più antica (…) Majid Elias…Una storia. La mia. La tua, figlia mia. Quella di tutti (Scego 2008, 60- 63).

On cassette, Elias begins his testimony to Zuhra by highlighting the interdependency of the characters’ stories. Elias explains to his estranged daughter that he cannot narrate his own turbulent life without first chronicling the plight of his ill-fated parents Majid and Famey. His testimony illustrates that each generation’s trauma is inseparable from the trauma of the next, making it impossible to understand one character’s pain without taking that of prior generations into consideration. The aim of this chapter is to examine the intergenerational symptoms of trauma in the selected texts. It explains what allowed the trauma suffered by one generation to be passed on to another and progressively worsen over time.

As I outlined in the past two chapters, the advent of mass migration to Italy since the 1990s

(Labanca 2015, 132) has sparked interest in Italian colonialism by several contemporary Italian authors. Among them, authors of trauma novels present complex, multivalent depictions of the colonial past that incorporate the suffering of those crushed under the weight of the Italian occupation. I indicated that my interest lies with a subset of texts within the genre of trauma novels, namely texts that represent intergenerational trauma. These texts are distinct from other works in the genre of trauma novels (such as those by Mario Domenichelli, Ubax Cristina Ali

Farah, and Kaha Mohamed Aden) because they portray the effects of trauma across multiple generations. While other trauma novels may demonstrate the severe psychological damage authoritarianism and war inflicted on the generations that lived through them, they do not explain what allowed the trauma undergone by one generation to metastasise over successive generations.

After providing a theoretical discussion of intergenerational trauma, my textual analysis illustrates how the texts represent the symptoms of trauma experienced by one generation adversely affecting the next generation. Decades of violence and psychological and sexual abuse are translated by these texts into painful legacies of intergenerational trauma experienced by contemporary protagonists in all three works. In Timira and Oltre Babilonia the protagonists have either migrated to or grown up in Italy. Isabella, Antar, Maryam and Zuhra are forced to carry the burden of intergenerational trauma with them in Italy. As I outlined in the introductory chapter, the characters’ suffering is compounded by the reticence many Italians show towards their colonial past. In response to the recalcitrance of Italians towards the traumatic histories of the former colonies, Maryam and Isabella narrate their testimonies to combat the symptoms of trauma. This leads them and their children Zuhra and Antar to engage in the act of witnessing

– either as narrators or as empathetic listeners. In Regina, Mahlet travels to contemporary Italy before returning to Ethiopia. The trip to Italy fundamentally alters the protagonist’s relationship with her country of origin and precipitates the transmission of traumatic memories to the protagonist, as discussed in chapter four.

Intergenerational trauma in literature

Before analysing the selected texts, I will first elaborate on the concept of intergenerational trauma in literature. In chapter one, I discussed the application of Cathy Caruth’s Freudian model of trauma to contemporary literary theory. Caruth’s model popularised in her 1995 text

Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History is not concerned with intergenerational trauma. However, I use Caruth’s work as a conceptual starting point to explain how trauma experienced by one generation is passed on to another. Her model explains how, when victims experience trauma, they are unable to cognitively process a harrowing event at the time of its occurrence. For this reason, trauma is experienced belatedly. This delayed reaction means that

victims are afflicted by the psychological remnants of their trauma long after any physical scars may have healed. My analysis illustrates that these traces are manifested through trauma novels as symtoms that are harmful to successive generations.

Caruth defines trauma as an asomatous wound. That is a wound that is primarily psychological not physical. She observes that, etymologically, the word trauma originally refers to “an injury inflicted on a body” (1996, 3). In time, the word came to be understood as “a wound inflicted not upon the body but upon the mind” (Caruth 1996, 3). Caruth’s definition is not intended to devalue the physical effects of suffering a traumatic event. Trauma is an inherently embodied experience and, as my analysis of the selected works demonstrates, the psychological effects of trauma often manifest themselves through physical symptoms. Caruth’s definition merely seeks to contrast the immediacy of physical trauma with the belated nature of psychological trauma. Trauma inflicted on the mind results in a double wounding. When the body is physically injured the painful symptoms of a physical wound are immediately felt and registered by a victim. The victim is cognisant of what has happened to them and physical trauma is a “simple and healable event” (Caruth 1996, 3). By contrast, when trauma strikes the mind, it temporarily knocks out the “cognitive and perceptual capacities” (Leys 2000, 298) of the victim and the mind uses coping mechanisms such as repression, denial, splitting, amnesia, derealisation and depersonalisation (Auehahn & Laub 1998, 23) to deal with the immediate threat of trauma. These defence mechanisms protect against a dissolution of the self in varying degrees by splitting traumatic experience off from reality (Auehahn & Laub 1998, 23). The memory of the traumatic event is confined to the recesses of the mind and cannot be readily recalled. As the victim is cognitivitely overwhelmed, the asomotous wound inflicted on the mind is not recorded in conscious memory. It is only through second wounding, which is experienced belatedly, that victims come to suffer the debilitating symptoms of their trauma.

As Caruth explains: “Trauma is not locatable in the simple violent or original event in an individual’s past, but rather in the way that its very unassimilated nature – the way it is precisely not known in the first instance – returns to haunt” (Caruth 1996, 4) the victim. Fragments of traumatic memory punctuate consciousness causing the victim to re-experience the harrowing event from their past. For this reason, trauma is not “like the wound of the body (…) but rather an event that (…) is experienced too soon, [and] too unexpectedly, to be fully known and is therefore not available to consciousness until it imposes itself again, repeatedly in the nightmares and repetitive actions” (Caruth 1996, 61) of the victim. Given that it is not immediately treatable, trauma has the potential to fester for years (Danieli 1998, 5). In Caruth’s view, trauma inflicted on the mind is all the more devastating because victims are condemned to repeatedly experience a second wounding long after the traumatic event has occured: “If a life threat to the body and the survival of this threat are experienced as the direct infliction and the healing of a wound, trauma is suffered in the psyche precisely, it would seem, because it is not directly available to experience” (Caruth 1996, 63). Traumatic memory lays dormant within the mind, unexpectedly bursting back into consciousness with devastating consequences. In the following section, I argue that repeated exposure to the symptoms of trauma across generations gradually erodes the victims’ resilience and psychological capacity to respond to hardship (Kellermann 2001, 258). The combination of this cumulative erosion of resilence and the multiple tragedies that unfolded in Somalia and Ethiopia created a perfect storm for the transmission of trauma across generations. I contrast my interpretation based on the wound with the prevailing model of intergenerational trauma as a contagious disease, as identified by

Michelle Balaev.

The transmission of intergenerational trauma

In the field of trauma studies, the concept of intergenerational trauma is not universally accepted. Dani Rowland-Klein and Rosemary Dunlop contend that in the existing body of

literature “there has been a tendency to pathologise and overgeneralise (…) [the descendants of trauma victims] as a homogenous group of vulnerable individuals” (1997, 359). The emergence of a standard pathology of intergenerational trauma risks eliding the heterogeneity of experience of the descendants of trauma victims. Balaev contends that the prevailing model of intergenerational trauma is based on a theory of contagion. Like Balaev, I object to intergenerational trauma being thought of as a contagious virus that vicariously traumatises the offspring of vicitms. Contagion theory considers trauma to infect generations who are not directly exposed to traumatic events. Individuals are susceptible to inheriting trauma if they share “social or biological similarities” (Balaev 2008, 152) with the original victims. Balaev states that:

[Contagion] theory indicates that a massive trauma experienced by a group in the historical past can be experienced by an individual living centuries later who shares a similar attribute of the historical group, such as sharing the same race, religion, nationality or gender due to the timeless, repetitious and infectious characteristics of traumatic experience and memory (2008, 152).

Balaev highlights that the idea of a “transhistorical (…) traumatic experience” (2008, 154) is implausible. It assumes that any individual can be potentially traumatised if they are related to a group that has been historically victimised and oppressed. My analysis of intergenerational trauma in the selected texts differs substantially from contagion theory. Rather than interpreting younger generations in the selected texts as having been infected by trauma due to a “shared ethnicity or genealogy” (Balaev 2008, 153) with the victims of colonisation, I argue instead that the tormented histories of Somalia and Ethiopia created a succession of traumas that are interconnected via the symptoms displayed by victims. I propose that successive generations are exposed to trauma through the suffering of their parents, relatives, and friends. When victims have not been able to heal their trauma, they continue to exhibit symptoms, which I describe in detail throughout this chapter. These symptoms are represented in the texts as

having a deleterious effect on both the victims themselves as well as their kin – who are repeateadly exposed to the psychological torment of their loved ones.

In the selected texts, parenting serves as a vector for the transmission of trauma across generations. According to Nanette Auehahn and Dori Laub, trauma “shapes the internal representation of reality of several generations, becoming an unconscious organizing principle passed on by parents and internalized by their children” (1998, 22). The fact that younger characters are reared by trauma victims creates an environment conducive to its transmission.

The reader first encounters characters like Zuhra and Antar as adults. They gradually learn over the course of the texts that Zuhra and Antar have, since infancy, and like Mahlet, lived day-today with elders and parents like Elias, Maryam, Yacob and Isabella who have experienced acts of violence, cruelty, and oppression. They bear the psychological wounds of their unresolved trauma. My textual analysis illustrates that victims are repeatedly accosted by symptoms, such as, but not limited to, flashbacks and nightmares, dysphoric moods and emotional distress, low self-esteem and issues relating to identity, anti-social behaviour and aggression (Kellermann

2001, 259; Atkinson, Nelson & Atkinson 2010, 139). These symptoms permeate the victims’ relationships with successive generations. Trauma is everpresent and resides in the flashes of anger and distress, the cracked voice or the melancholic silences of the victim. Natan

Kellerman employs the metaphor of vibrations to describe the transmission of trauma across generations (2001, 266). Like vibrations, successive generations intuit the emotional resonances of trauma on a deeply embodied level. They sense that behind the sighs, whispers, and tears of their parents and elders lurks a deeper, more insidious pain that remains unexpressed and inaccessible to the victm. As Eva Hoffman states: “Those who are born after the calamity sense its most inward meanings first and have to work their way outwards towards the facts” (2004, 16). Despite not having lived through a traumatic event successive generations

are afflicted by its symptoms and “the child is experiencing what the parents themselves cannot perceive and express” (Kellermann 2001, 265).

Intergenerational trauma in the selected texts

The afterlife of trauma inherited by successive generations takes on different incarnations in the texts I have chosen. I argue that cultural bereavement (a concept I discuss below), anxiety around miscegenation and cultural identity as well as a pattern of abandonment and neglect displayed by protagonists are all manifestations of intergenerational trauma – reinforcing that it can be expressed in a multitude of forms. As victims are unable to come to terms with what has happened to them, their progeny must provide the emotional labour to psychologically process their ancestor’s unresolved trauma: “Emotions that could not be consciously experienced by the first generation are given over to the second generation. The child thus unconsciously absorbs the repressed and insufficiently worked-through (…) experiences”

(Kellermann 2001, 260) of their forebears. The intergenerational sypmtoms of trauma represented in the selected trauma novels do not dissipate over time. Trauma outlives its victims through its transmission to successive generations. It continues to effect families and communities, transmuting from a trauma that is experienced individually to one that is felt at a collective and even societal level.

In the selected works the symptoms of trauma have a cumulative effect over generations due to the series of tragedies that have besieged Somalia and Ethiopia during the second half of the twentieth century. Victims and their offspring have suffered a series of psychological blows in the form of colonialism, dictatorship, and civil war. Characters who have experienced one or more of these traumas have been so overwhelmed by their continual exposure to violence in their lives that they have never had the opportunity to properly process their congenital grief.

Individuals can come to terms with their congenital grief by instantiating narratives of recovery

that “situate painful experiences within a vision of the future” (Saul 2014, 48) that promises hope and recovery for their communities. According to psychologist Jack Saul, “when people can weave new sources of continuity and connectedness into their life stories, they are better able to overcome the disturbing discontinuities they endured as a result of violence, tragic loss, or displacement from home, country, or culture” (Saul 2013, 48). My textual analysis illustrates that attempts by Elias and Maryam, Isabella, Antar, and Mahlet to cure the trauma at the heart of their families and their communities originating from colonialism are interrupted by dictatorship and then civil war. Decades of violence and abuse have repeatedly obstructured these characters’ attempts to heal. In the following section, I examine the succession of tragic events that have blighted the victims and their descendants over time. This excursus illustrates the incessant violence, intimidation, and oppression suffered by multiple generations that has stymied the healing process.

Intergenerational trauma as cultural bereavement

Regina, collates various firsthand accounts of Ethiopia’s capitulation to Italian forces. These accounts only begin to make sense to the protagonist when she realises that the trauma she has suffered in her own life has been magnified by the ancestral grief of colonialism. To understand

Mahlet’s predicament it is important to trace the narrative of intergenerational trauma back to its inception. Intergenerational trauma begins with the relationship between Yacob and Mahlet.

Both characters are exposed to terrifying events that radically alter their subjectivities. Yacob experiences the tribulations of Italian colonisation and Mahlet lives through the Derg dictatorship in Ethiopia in the 1970s. While distinct from one another, these two traumas are interconnected through the symptoms that are passed on generationally. In Regina, intergenerational trauma manifests itself as cultural bereavement, which is a type of grief characterised by a loss of social structures, cultural values, and self-identity (Eisenbruch 1991,

674). The protagonist makes a promise to her favourite elder as a child that she fully intends to

honour but is distracted from growing up under an authoritarian regime. When Mahlet is unable to fulfil her obligation to Yacob, she begins to experience the symptoms of cultural bereavement, meaning that she suffers from a perceived loss of cultural values and identity as a direct result of her inability to relieve Yacob of his trauma by making good on her promise to recount the trauma of Italian colonialism.

At the beginning of the trauma novel, Mahlet is invited into the bedroom of Yacob. Despite her hesitation, the elder encourages Mahlet to rummage through his shemmà or trunk. The young protagonist discovers Yacob’s foglio di sottomissione. He explains the significance of the document: “Quando il nostro paese era occupato dagli italiani dovevi averlo sempre con te.

Dovevi mostrarlo ai soldati che te lo chiedevano. Se non l’avevi potevi anche venire ammazzato” (Ghermandi 2007, 12-13). The protagonist is intrigued by the foglio di sottomissione and after some cajoling Yacob decides to share his harrowing past with her. The elder reveals that as a young man he fought with the Ethiopian resistance against Italian forces and remained disturbed by the horrors he experienced on the battlefield. He and fellow

Ethiopian soldiers were petrified by the arrival of Italian tanks that decimated their land. Yacob was shocked when “dal cannone era partito un colpo. Una fiammata che aveva solcato l'aria e si era piantata al suolo con un gran frastuono, sollevando terra tutt'attorno. Quando la fiammata si era spenta nel terreno c’era un buco. Un terrore senza ritegno mi aveva afferrato e costretto a scappare” (Ghermandi 2007, 29). After his time spent fighting against Italian forces Yacob is never the same. He finds the cruelty of his enemies incomprehensible and develops an intense loathing of Italians, remarking that “gli italiani diventano brave persone solo dopo che hanno reso l’anima a Dio e lui gliel’ha ripulita” (Ghermandi 2007, 27). Yacob’s hatred of his colonial oppressors is complicated by his sister’s love affair with an Italian soldier, Daniel. While Yacob is initially wary of Daniel, he gradually learns to accept his sister’s lover. Daniel actively helps

the Ethiopian resistance fight colonial forces to prove his loyalty to Yacob. Yacob explains

Daniel’s attempt to win the trust of resistance fighters: “Daniel aveva insegnato al gruppo ogni cosa sulle armi in uso presso gli italiani, sull’organizzazione militare, le squadre, i plotoni, le compagnie, i battaglioni” (Ghermandi 2007, 58). Amarech soon falls pregnant and, knowing that their relationship will be condemned by the colonial regime, Daniel decides to desert the army. The couple run away together and seek out refuge in another part of the country where they go into hiding. Despite attempts by resistance fighters to shelter them, Daniel and

Amarech are soon caught and immediately killed. Yacob achingly recalls their deaths:

Hanno ammazzato Daniel dentro al forte. In una stanza. L’abbiamo saputo da un nostro infiltrato: un colpo in testa lontano dagli sguardi di chiunque. Non volevano si sapesse che un italiano stava con noi. Amarech l’hanno impiccata. Nella piazza di Holetà. Hanno lasciato il suo corpo a penzolare per tutto il giorno. Con un cartello attaccato alla schiena: ‘Così finiscono i ribelli’ (Ghermandi 2007, 64).

Unlike Daniel, who is discretely murdered to avoid embarrassment among colonial officials,

Amarech is left to rot in the sun. Yacob is horrified by the absolute contempt colonial forces show for her body. His sister is used as a grotesque spectacle placed in the town square to ward off further rebellion. Yacob is irreparably changed by the loss of Amarech and Daniel. He is immensely conflicted by the death of his sister. On one hand, he is revolted by the unscrupulous tactics used by colonial authorities to denigrate the Ethiopian resistance. On the other hand,

Yacob does not mischaracterise all Italians as oppressors. He recognises a shared humanity in

Daniel that allowed him to conquer his prejudice. Yacob’s insistence that Mahlet grow up to be a cantora can be partly attributed to the fact that he never truly overcame either the terror he felt on the battlefield or the murder of his sibling and her lover.

When Yacob recounts his trauma to Mahlet as an old man, he is still consumed by sadness over the past, particularly the death of his beloved sister Amarech. In the following quote, it is evident that Yacob is experiencing the double wounding of trauma described by Caruth: “Si

era perso in un tempo lontano dove io non potevo raggiungerlo. Ci mise un po’ a tornare al presente (...). Mi sembrava così triste” (Ghermandi 2007, 67). Despite the many years that have elapsed since the traumatic events described in the previous section, Yacob is instantaneously transported back to the agony of losing his sister and experiencing the savagery of Italian warfare. Trauma erupts back into consciousness, bringing with it the crippling emotions that accompany reliving harrowing memories. Yacob is adamant that Mahlet will put an end to his grief. He assigns her the task of one day alleviating his trauma by bringing it to the “paese degli italiani” (Ghermandi 2007, 67). Yacob emphatically tells her: “Sarai la nostra voce che racconta (…). Sarai la voce della nostra storia che non vuole essere dimenticata” (Ghermandi

2007, 6). Mahlet is only a small child at the time and his words unsettle her. The protagonist recalls “la storia del vecchio Yacob continuò a ripetersi nelle mie orecchie per quasi due anni.

Sembrava una preghiera che voleva essere imparata a memoria” (Ghermandi 2007, 69). He asks her to swear in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary that she will honour her word and act as a mouthpiece for all those who suffered during colonisation.

The responsibility of narrating Yacob’s suffering to an Italian audience becomes intrinsic to the protagonist’s identity and she dutifully accepts it. According to Auehahn and Laub, often trauma victims “are unable to complete the process [of healing] themselves, leaving their children [and descendants] to carry on working through trauma” (1998, 22). Mahlet fully intends to honour the wishes of her favourite elder. Unfortunately, she is distracted from her promise growing up during the years of the Derg. In 1974 after staging a coup d’état against

Emperor Haile Selassie a military committee known as the Derg seized power, disbanding

Parliament, the constitution, and the monarchy (Gebru 2009, 39). Tareke Gebru observes that the first phase of the revolution was relatively peaceful. Opponents of the Emperor were united in their desire to overthrow the monarchy. Once this was achieved opposition forces “imploded

into competing groups” (2009, 40), and the second phase of the revolution from 1975 onwards

“was extremely violent, causing death, mayhem, and destruction on an incalculable scale”

(2009, 40). The revolution would precipitate the second major trauma in Ethiopia after colonisation – namely the rise of authoritarianism. Kjetil Tronvoll, Charles Schaefer, and

Girmachew Alemu Aneme describe the Derg as one of the most ruthless dictatorships in Africa

(2009, xi). They state that “the entire era of the Derg was characterized by massive human rights violations (…). In the form of sexual abuse, summary execution, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, disappearance, unlawful dispossession of property (…) and forced settlement”

(2009, 4). The repressive regime forms the backdrop to Mahlet’s childhood in Regina (Manzin

2011, 112). Faced with the harsh reality of the Derg, the protagonist is forced to suppress her promise to Yacob. The protagonist and many of her generation learn to detach themselves from the horror they live in day to day: “Ci eravamo abituati alle loro prepotenze e sapevamo anche come evitarle (…). In qualche modo eravamo riusciti a seperare la nostra realtà di cittadini comuni dall’altra, quella del Derg” (Ghermandi 2007, 98-99). Yacob’s testimony is entombed in the protagonist’s memory: “La storia del vecchio Yacob, assieme alla promessa solenne, scomparve dalle mie orecchie e dal mio presente (…). Qualcosa di me l’aveva scacciata in un angolo della stanza della memoria. Ben nascosta. In un baule invisibile e introvabile, sepolto sotto una catasta di cianfrusaglie” (Ghermandi 2007, 72). Yacob’s promise is set aside as the protagonist is forced to deal with the more immediate threat of the Derg. It is “kept separate from the conscious self (…) [so that it] it may be (…) recovered as a whole” (Auehahn & Laub

1998, 29). This memory from her early childhood remains latent in her unconscious. While

Mahlet has forgotten her pledge to Yacob, a nagging feeling of responsibility continues to trouble her into adulthood.

The draconian regime brutalises Ethiopians into submission, degrading them to the point that

“il nostro popolo aveva accettato di mostrare il volto della rassegnazione” (Ghermandi 2007,

97). Ghermandi chooses to recreate the repressive conditions experienced by the protagonist living under the Derg by leaving much unsaid about the crimes it committed. The climate of fear generated by these conditions is depicted in the text through the snippets of memories that address these violations directly. As Mahlet describes:

Quando iniziai a lavorare nel negozio di Legesse era la metà del 1982 (…) Il Derg era al potere da ormai sedici anni (…) per mantenere saldo il suo trono, Mengistu Hailè Mariam, il capo del Derg, il terrore rosso d’Etiopia, assieme alla sua giunta militare, aveva ordinato retate, torture spietate e uccisioni di massa. Era sufficiente essere sospettato, avere detto, per errore, una parola che poteva essere interpretata come contraria alla politica del Derg, e si veniva torturati, trucidati, ammazzati” (Ghermandi 2007, 96-97).

Mahlet recounts that information of the atrocities being perpetrated in Ethiopia is communicated through whispers and insinuations: “Io sapevo dalla scuola, dai nostri compagni, con cui ci scambiavamo le poche informazioni politiche, dai rumori ormai noti delle retate notturne. Il rumore delle armi, degli spari, dei blindati che si muovevano nelle strade buie dopo il coprifuoco” (Ghermandi 2007, 97). The trauma of the Derg is rendered more disturbing by the omission of most of its crimes. Violence is not absent from the text because it didn’t occur. It is missing due to the state of ignorance that Mahlet, like the majority of

Ethiopians, was forced to live in to survive. The protagonist explains: “C’era una frase ricorrente che interrompeva qualsiasi domanda: ‘Non è il tempo di parlare di certe cose.

Verranno i giorni e allora vi racconteremo. Oggi è troppo pericoloso’” (Ghermandi 2007, 97).

Despite Mahlet’s reluctance to speak about the Derg, trauma does occasionally punctuate the narrative. At one stage, Mahlet relays stories of the Red Terror. The Red Terror, which began in 1977, was a brutal cracked down on opponents of the Derg, and was implemented by its leader Mengistu Hailè Mariam to quell any form of dissent. During the Terror “tens of thousands of Ethiopian intellectuals, opposition party members and sympathisers were

imprisoned, tortured and killed” (Tronvoll, Schaefer & Alemu Aneme 2009, xi). Gebru contends that in spite of the Marxist propaganda used to justify the Terror, it was nothing more than a killing spree that would ensure the complete control of the Derg. He states that “the

Terror was (…) an instrument of power consolidation by a cabal of officers headed by Mengistu and it was disproportionate, pitiless, and random. In the end, popular will yielded to the repressive state organs that, in turn, were employed to establish authoritarianism” (2009, 42).

During this period alone an estimated “150,000 to 500,000” (Tronvoll, Schaefer & Aneme

2009, 4) people were killed. Mahlet explains that she is petrified of the regime because: “Nei primi anni del suo governo, quando io non ero ancora nata, non c’era stata notte senza sparatorie, e ogni mattina corpi di giovani studenti giacevano squarciati da raffiche di mitragliatrici nelle strade delle città. In tre anni avevano eliminato ogni gruppo che aveva pubblicamente contestato” (Ghermandi 2007, 97). The extraordinary lengths to which the Derg were willing to go to suppress any form of rebellion are expressed through memories of its campaign to defeat guerrilla fighters. Mahlet is later told by a patron of the shop she works in that “la settimana scorsa il governo ha fatto bruciare interi campi di tief, vicino ad Adua. Hanno scoperto che alcune famiglie davano metà dei loro raccolti ai guerriglieri per sostenerli, così hanno appiccato il fuoco ai campi coltivati di tutta la zona” (Ghermandi 2007, 104). The tyranny of the regime is apparent in its destruction of farmer’s crops. After the bloodshed of the Red Terror, Ethiopia was gripped by the tyrannical clutches of the Derg until 199118.

Mahlet’s family does not go untouched by the Derg’s power. She describes that in the process of nationalisation her father lost his home and her family were forced to live with her uncle

Mesfin. Mahlet’s father tries to remind the authorities that the house is a “simbolo di una

18 The Derg regime was officially abolished in 1987 with the establishment of the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. However, many of the Derg officials retained their positions of authority in the new regime including Mengistu Hailè Mariam, who ruled the country until he fled to Zimbabwe in 1991 (Tronvoll, Schaefer & Alemu Aneme 2009, xi).

100

famiglia che, assieme alle armate di Ras Mengesha, aveva combattuto gli italiani ad Adua e dopo, dal ’35 al ’41, i fascisti nel Goggiam, nel Menz e nel Minjar” (Ghermandi 2007, 116).

However, his protestations are met with threats of imprisonment, forcing him to hand over the house. The struggle between Mahlet’s father and the new regime perfectly encapsulates the legacy of the Derg in Ethiopia. Her father and many like him face the indignity of having their families’ contribution to liberating Ethiopia from Italian colonialism effaced by a despotic communist government. In one generation, they have been transformed from proud resistance fighters into class enemies.

The Derg’s treatment of the colonial past is further evidence of the centrality of intergenerational trauma in the text. The unresolved trauma of the Italian occupation is compounded by the terror of authoritarianism. The attempted erasure of memories of the

Ethiopian resistance to colonialism under the Derg hinders Mahlet from recovering the memory of her promise to Yacob. The protagonist’s endeavour to fulfil her promise to her beloved elder is hampered by her intense fear of the dictatorship, which can be interpreted as another form of trauma. Mahlet’s fear of the Derg allows the unresolved trauma of colonisation to be passed down from one generation to the next. Mahlet’s sense of cultural bereavement is amplified by the Derg. The protagonist’s perceived loss of cultural values and identity reflects the author’s own concern, expressed in an interview with Daniele Comberiati, about the loss of Ethiopian customs and traditions: “C’è nel romanzo un forte contrasto fra una tradizione che si è da sempre tramandata e una modernità in cui si stanno completamente perdendo le radici

(…). C’è molta poca consapevolezza dell’importanza della propria cultura: vengono meno il rispetto per gli anziani, l’importanza della famiglia, si perdono le tradizioni più antiche”

(Comberiati 2011, 152). The protagonist’s inability to recover her promise leads to the sensation that she is losing contact with her cultural roots – embodied by proud resistance

101

fighters, like Yacob, who defended their country from a foreign power. Mahlet complains that her family members have been made pariahs who have no place in the new society, recalling:

“Convennero, tristemente, che davvero era nata una nuova Etiopia, un’Etiopia che non rispondeva più alle vecchie regole tramandate da millenni, ma a quelle di un regime d’ispirazione sovietica. Una nuova Etiopia che il tempo avrebbe sentenziato essere peggiore della precedente” (Ghermandi 2007, 116). Mahlet’s traumatisation under the Derg is not immediately apparent. The resilient protagonist tries not to respond to tactics that are deliberately supposed to slowly degrade and humiliate her and her loved ones. Even when the family home is confiscated she remains stoic.

It is only when Mahlet travels to Italy after the collapse of the Derg that the protagonist begins to experience the intergenerational sypmtoms of trauma. In 1991, following seventeen years of

“iron rule” (Gebru 2009, 2), Mengistu Hailè Mariam went into exile in Zimbabwe and the Derg was overthrown by a coalition of opposition forces (Gebru 2009, 2). The protagonist describes the immense relief felt by Ethiopians, exclaiming: “Il 1991 (…) inaugurò una nuova epoca nella storia d’Etiopia (…). Non eravamo più proprietà dello Stato” (Ghermandi 2007, 131-

132). The new government lifted travel restrictions allowing Mahlet to move to Bologna to study. Mahlet’s parents express their disapproval of their daughter’s choice to pursue her education in Italy and the protagonist turns to Yacob to convince them to let her go. When confiding her desire to travel to Italy to Yacob, the beloved elder vigorously encourages her:

“‘Vuoi andare nella terra dove sono morti Pietro e Paolo!’ Sentii un brivido correre lungo la schiena. ‘Come?’. ‘Sì figliola, la terra in cui sono morti Pietro e Paolo! Mi sembra un’ottima idea.’ Il brivido si fece più intenso. Credo che quella fosse la prima volta che la mia mente avvertì qualcosa” (Ghermandi 2007, 134). Yacob’s endorsement of the protagonist’s decision tickles her memory and her latent promise to Yacob momentarily resurfaces: “Sorse il vago

102

ricordo di una promessa non bene identificata. Cercai di calmarmi e di zittire il richiamo della memoria, in quel momento era importante solo afferrare il nucleo della sua risposta”

(Ghermandi 2007, 134). Mahlet’s parents finally acquiesce and the protagonist travels to Italy to begin her studies – having failed to recover the repressed memory from her childhood.

Mahlet finds the experience of living overseas completely debilitating:

Trascorsi quel mio primo anno studiando l’italiano, e cercai di attenuare la mia nostalgia mescolandomi con i tanti stranieri che erano venuti a imparare l’italiano come me. Certo, frequentarli non significava colmare il mio vuoto, però aiutava (…). Ognuno cercava di ricrearsi una nicchia in cui sentirsi meno spaesato, e lo faceva provando a riprodurre un pezzo del suo paese d’origine (Ghermandi 2007, 137).

The protagonist is unable to cope outside of her native Ethiopia as the symptoms of intergenerational trauma have undermined her psychological resilience. The difficulty of forging a new life for herself in a foreign country is compounded by the aftereffects of trauma

Mahlet continues to suffer having failed to recover her promise to Yacob growing up under the

Derg. Her attempts to carve out a space for her identity in Bologna are thwarted by an unrelenting desire for her homeland. As a result, she retreats further into herself. Mahlet’s inability to forge a new life for herself in Italy indicates that she is traumatised. Rather than enjoying her newfound freedom Mahlet is haunted by her past and is compelled to return to

Ethiopia, the country that holds terrible memories of her adolescence, which I previously discussed. When she receives news that the elders from her village Debre Zeit have passed away the protagonist begins to deteriorate psychologically. Initially, Mahlet cannot afford to travel home to mourn the loss of the elders Yohanes or Selemon and she remains in Italy. The protagonist is accustomed to public demonstrations of grief and “piansi immersa in quella solitudine a cui non ero abituata. Nessuno in Italia ergeva la tenda del pianto per accogliere parenti, amici e tutti coloro che vogliono stringersi ai familiari del defunto, per condividere il lutto e sostenerli nel dolore” (Ghermandi 2007, 138). Mahlet’s university friends are unable to

103

relate to her and decide to leave her alone to mourn in private, something that renders the protagonist’s grief “più acuto e insopportabile” (Ghermandi 2007, 138). Despite being desperately lonely and homesick, the protagonist persists with her studies. When she receives word that Yacob has died Mahlet experiences what appears to be a nervous breakdown.

The second half of Regina titled Il ritorno follows Mahlet’s recovery. She travels back to

Ethiopia to mourn his loss but is inconsolable. Mahlet tells her mother: “In Italia ho sognato ogni momento il giorno in cui sarei tornata a casa. Nella mia terra. La nostra terra. Mi ero ripromessa che avrei posato a lungo gli occhi e il cuore su ogni cosa (…). Ma oggi madre mia non riesco a vedere. I miei occhi sono oscurati dalla tristezza. Mi sento sconfitta” (Ghermandi

2007, 140-141). The protagonist’s grief is intensified by her inability to remember her promise.

After four years in Italy Mahlet is still unable to retrieve the memory of her childhood from her unconscious and fulfil her role as a cantora. She remains burdened by the testimony of

Yacob’s unresolved trauma and the symptoms of intergenerational trauma manifest as cultural bereavement. Maurice Eisenbruch describes that a person suffering from the symptoms of cultural bereavement:

continues to live in the past, is visited by supernatural forces from the past while asleep or awake, suffers feelings of guilt over abandoning culture and homeland, feels pain if memories of the past begin to fade, but finds constant images of the past (including traumatic images) intruding into daily life, yearns to complete obligations to the dead, and feels stricken by anxieties, morbid thoughts, and anger that mar the ability to get on with daily life (1991, 674).

Mahlet exhibits several of the symptoms outlined by Eisenbruch. She is visited by supernatural forces in the form of Yacob’s spectre, which appears in her dreams. Mahlet cannot understand why the ghost of Yacob continues to visit her in her sleep and believes she is somehow indebted to him. Yacob’s ghost continues to prompt her to recall the promise in her dreams. She feels an overwhelming obligation to fulfil the wishes of her favourite elder and experiences guilt and sadness that she cannot. Mahlet confides her troubles in her mother:

104

Ho sognato di Abba Yacob (…). Ho sognato che stava davanti alla porta di una stanza, girato verso di me con la porta alle spalle. Sembrava volesse condurmi dentro, ma poi mi sono svegliata…nel bel mezzo della notte! ‘Abba Yacob sta cercando di dirti qualcosa figliola!’ ‘Peccato che mi sia svegliata prima del tempo’, commentai con una nota di rammarico nella voce (…) ‘Non aver timore. Riuscirai a sciogliere il tuo laccio, e quanto ad Abba Yacob, sono sicura, tornerà nei tuoi sogni’ (Ghermandi 2007, 199-200).

Mahlet honours Yacob’s dying wish and sleeps in the deceased elder’s room. She is also tasked with praying for him at the monastery of Giorgis. There she encounters the hermit Abba

Chereka – a figure from Yacob’s past whose identity is only disclosed to the protagonist after she recovers the memory of her promise. The hermit encourages her to pray at the monastery daily to “sciogliere il laccio che ti trattiene” (Ghermandi 2007, 197). While praying at the monastery Mahlet develops a reputation as a collector of “storie sul tempo degli italiani”

(Ghermandi 2007, 240). The protagonist is bewildered by the enthusiastic locals who confide their testimonies of the colonial past in her. She views the testimonies as a distraction from her grieving process. The exasperated protagonist complains: “Io raccoglitrice di storie. E dove mai avrei dovuto usare la storia [?] (…). A dire il vero non era la prima ad avermi detto una frase del genere” (Ghermandi 2007, 231). As time goes on, Mahlet becomes increasingly frustrated. She is haunted by Yacob in her dreams at night and pestered by stories of Italian colonisation during the day. Mahlet finds the testimonies all-consuming: “Quando sono sveglia non riesco a togliermi dalla testa le immagini degli italiani” (Ghermandi 2007, 284). Mahlet begrudgingly accepts the role of the empathetic listener to the victims of colonialism who approach her, unaware that the testimonies she is exposed to represent an antidote to her own trauma. In chapter four I will explain that the act of witnessing helps Mahlet to revive the memory of the childhood pledge she made. This in turn helps her to recuperate those “cultural values and self-identity” (Eisenbruch 1991, 674), she lost growing up under the Derg and being separated from Ethiopia when her beloved elder died.

Intergenerational trauma, miscegenation and anxiety around cultural identity

105

Similarly to Regina, the symptoms of intergenerational trauma are also intertwined with identity in Timira. In Timira, symptoms manifest themselves as an anxiety around miscegenation and cultural identity. Miscgenation had a complicated history in the Italian colonies in Africa. Giulia Barrera observes that successive liberal and initially fascist governments were open to Italian men legally recognising their mixed race or meticci childen with African women. It wasn’t until the introduction of legislation in 1940 prohibiting mixed relationships that miscegenation came to be associated with “racial degeneration” (2005, 98).

The trauma of colonisation is initially concealed within the relationship between Giuseppe and the protagonist’s biological mother Aschirò. In the early chapters of the text Aschirò is absent from the narrative, shrouded in mystery. Similarly to Isabella, who grows up not knowing the identity of her birthmother, the reader is initially placed in a position of naivety. The reader learns about Aschirò only through a letter from Isabella’s father to his brother. In this letter,

Giuseppe barely mentions Aschirò and instead frames himself as the benevolent coloniser willing to officially recognise and foster his illegitimate children, despite the stigma attached to interracial relationships. Giuseppe tells his brother: “Gli indigeni ci guardano, ci giudicano, e noi dobbiamo tenere una condotta esemplare. Abbandonare i figli non è certo la lezione che vogliamo impartire ai somali” (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012, 50). As the text unfolds, the relationship between Giuseppe and Aschirò is gradually exposed. Aschirò is revealed to be little more than a slave at the service of her Italian master. Her relationship with Giuseppe was predicated on violence and subjugation.

In Timira the reverberations of this traumatic relationship are not limited to one generation. As the progeny of rape, Isabella and her brother Giorgio inherit the trauma of their mother’s abuse.

Isabella and her brother Giorgio are taken away from Aschirò to be reared by their father – the perpetrator of trauma – rather than their mother – the victim of trauma. At the tender age of

106

two Isabella made the voyage from Somalia to Italy. She was taken to live in fascist Rome – the seat of Empire with Giuseppe, her stepmother Flora Virdis, and their two children Rosa and Ciro. Giorgo, the other illegitimate child of Giuseppe, was sent to live with his uncle and aunt in Pizzo Calabro. As mentioned the introductory chapter, Giorgio has been the subject of a biography, Razza partigiana: storia di Giorgio Marincola (1923-1945) by Carlo Costa and

Lorenzo Teodino. Timira provides a semi-fictionalised account of his life based on historical events refracted through Isabella’s eyes. Giorgio rejoined the Marincola family in Rome at the age of ten. He became a withdrawn adolescent and spent much of his time outside the

Marincola household congregrating with members of the antifascist Action Party, which would eventuate in him fighting in the Italian resistance movement against Nazi troops. Giorgio’s absence from the home leads to Isabella being the main target of her stepmother’s wrath.

Despite Giuseppe’s intention to raise Isabella as Italian, she is held in contempt by his wife

Flora. Giuseppe chose to hide his past in Somalia from Isabella, telling her she was the daughter of Flora. The lies continued throughout Isabella’s childhood. When Isabella attends school she begins to realise that the colour of her skin is different from that of her classmates. Giuseppe explains that her colouring is due to her exposure to the harsh sun in Mogadishu (Mohamed &

Wu Ming 2 2012, 103). Growing up believing she is the daughter of Giuseppe and Flora,

Isabella cannot comprehend her stepmother’s resentment towards her. She remains ignorant of the fact that she is “l’immagine del peccato di suo marito” (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012, 68) in her stepmother’s eyes. Flora is unable to forgive her husband and remains cold and acerbic towards her illegitimate daughter. She beats Isabella with a curbash, or riding crop, and harangues her, telling her she is “stupida come una scimmia” (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012,

91) in front of her half-siblings Rosa and Ciro. Isabella experiences a lonely childhood devoid of maternal affection. Giorgio remains a peripheral character throughout Timira. Unlike

Isabella, Giorgio learns the truth about his birthmother from his uncle at an early age. He pines

107

for his birthmother and hides a photograph of Aschirò in his bookshelf that Rosa eventually discovers and shows to Isabella. The protagonist finally realises that she is not Flora’s daughter and her life up to this point has been “un enorme inganno” (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012,

102). When Flora attempts to beat Isabella again, she defiantly admits that she has learnt the truth about Achirò, a revelation that further aggravates her stepmother. Flora’s aggression towards Isabella illustrates the residual symptoms of intergenerational trauma. Isabella realises she has been castigated for her difference from her half-siblings: she has been pushed to internalise the shame around her meticcia identity. Instead of being a safe space, the family home becomes the site of magnified trauma where Isabella routinely suffers physical and verbal abuse.

The acrimonious relationship between stepmother and daughter continues throughout

Isabella’s adolescence and adult life living in Rome. The protagonist is forced to endure Flora’s recriminations. When Isabella begins modelling to make a living, Flora accuses her of being little more than a whore like her biological mother and lambasts her stepdaughter: “Sei rimasta una bagassa, come tua madre, e te ne vai in giro a spogliarti per due lire” (Mohamed & Wu

Ming 2 2012, 144). Rather than confronting her husband directly, Flora projects her feelings of insecurity and betrayal onto her stepdaughter. Initially, Giuseppe is supportive of Isabella.

However, their relationship deteriorates when the protagonist finally confronts her father about the immense pain he caused Aschirò. Isabella’s insistence on unearthing her mother’s story compromises her father’s account of the past. The protagonist realises that: “Per un lungo tempo mi sono raccontata che mio padre (…) ha fatto un gesto generoso, molto insolito per quei tempi. Darci il suo cognome, il nome dei nonni. Ma ora (…) mi rendo conto che devo accettarlo: sono la figlia di una violenza” (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012, 375). When faced with his daughter’s suffering, Giuseppe can no longer absolve himself of guilt, confessing:

108

“Pensavo di essermi comportato da gentiluomo (…). E invece ho rovinato la vita a tutti quanti”

(Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012, 147). The original trauma of Aschirò’s rape is not resolved by

Giuseppe’s attempt to raise his children as Italians. Instead, trauma tears the Marincola family apart as Flora is unable to accept Isabella and Giorgio.

Isabella’s own sense of isolation living as a meticcia in Italy is compounded by the loss of her brother Giorgio. Despite being somewhat absent from her early life, Isabella and Giorgio share a special relationship as meticci and are fetishised as prized specimens from the colonies, something I explore in depth in the next chapter. The siblings are inextricably linked and implicitly comprehend each others’ suffering. As a young man, Giorgio enrolled in a medical degree with the hope of returning to work in Somalia. However, his studies were interrupted by the Second World War, during which Giorgio joined the Italian resistance movement. His initiation into the resistance required Giorgio to abandon his previous life and adopt the alias of Mercurio (Costa & Lorenzo 2008, 99). Costa and Teodino interpret Giorgio’s choice to become a partisan as a means of reinventing his identity (2008, 166). Behind his political and ethical motivations to join the resistance are deeper psychological and emotive ones. His commitment to the partisans represents a direct affront to fascist values embodied by his father.

Isabella attributes the impetus for her brother joining the resistance to the fact that “Giorgio e io eravamo antifascisti nati, perché due mulatti italiani, figli della colonia, l’opposizione al regime ce l’avevamo nel sangue” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 187). In becoming Mercurio

Giorgio could take a stand against the regime that had colonised his mother’s homeland and reject its ideology.

This need to remake himself propelled Giorgio to fight the scourge of Fascism even when his life was endangered. After the liberation of Rome by Allied forces, Giorgio enlisted in the

109

Special Operations Executive and was sent to the region of Piedmont to fight the remaining

German forces in Northern Italy. He was captured by Nazi-fascist troops in Biella and sent to a concentration camp in Bolzano where he remained until his liberation in April 1945 (Costa

& Teodino 2008, 143). Rather than seeking refuge in neighbouring Switzerland, he chose to join a band of partisans and continued to fight for justice against retreating S.S. troops in Val di Fiemme. His unwavering belief in the Italian resistance ultimately led to his death at the hands of the S.S. in the village of Stramentizzo (Costa & Teodino 2008, 154). The loss of

Giorgio continues to haunt Isabella throughout the rest of her life. Even though Giorgio is portrayed as an elusive figure in her childhood, he represents the only other individual who had experienced the loss of a mother and a homeland. As discussed in the following chapter,

Giorgio’s untimely death is at the heart of Isabella’s trauma. In his absence, Isabella is forced to carry the burden of miscegenation singlehandedly, from which she never truly recovered.

Later in life, Isabella makes Giorgio’s dream of travelling back to Somalia and reconnecting with their birthmother come true. Isabella learns that her biological mother had no intention to surrender her children to Giuseppe. Aschirò describes her unwavering commitment to her children: “Vi ho portati dentro di me, vi ho allattati, vi ho tenuto tante ore contro la schiena, avvolti nella fascia, mentre andavo in giro o facevo i lavori” (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012,

374). Isabella is shocked to learn that, after she and her brother were taken away, Aschirò heard nothing of them from Giuseppe. Astonished Isabella asks her: “Quindi Giuseppe non ti ha mai scritto niente di noi? Niente di niente?” to which her mother stoically replies: “Mai niente. Solo soldi, una volta all’anno, per una decina d’anni (…). L’affitto per la mia pancia” (Mohamed &

Wu Ming 2 2012. 374). This confession by Aschirò hints at the darker aspects of her relationship with Giuseppe. In Timira, there are no instances of Aschirò suffering physical or sexual abuse. This may be because the narrative is told predominantly from Isabella’s

110

perspective. When she first returns to Mogadishu, Isabella doesn’t speak Somali and is forced to rely on a translator to converse with her mother. It can only be assumed that explicit details of Giuseppe’s behaviour towards Aschirò never surface either because they are too painful for her to recount or because of the language barrier. While her mother’s exploitation is never referenced directly, it is hinted at several times. At one stage, Aschirò refers to Isabella as a

“stronza” (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2012, 291). When a stupefied Isabella asks her why she called her like this, Aschirò responds: “Tuo padre lo diceva sempre. ‘Stronzo, fa’ questo!

Stronza, fa’ quest’altro. Vattene via, stronzo’. Non è male. È un modo per chiamare”

(Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012, 291). Isabella is astonished by this insult. It is a small indication of Giuseppe’s abusive and demeaning treatment of the local population, including her mother. Piera Carroli and Vivian Gerrand observe that Aschirò’s description of Giuseppe confirms that “the underlying culprit is (…) the Italian officer, who represents the Fascist colonial regime that sanctioned illicit liaisons with African women, who were subjected to prostitution and rape and deemed inferior to the Italian race” (2014, 210). Isabella recognises that she and her deceased brother Giorgio are the products of violence perpetrated on an individual and systemic level: “Sono figlia di una violenza, e lo sarei anche se i miei genitori si fossero tanto amati (...). L’amore ai tempi delle colonie è impastato di ferocia. Un pugnale affilato minaccia e uccide, anche se lo spalmi di miele” (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012, 375).

The sexual exploitation of her mother by Giuseppe was condoned by the colonial regime. His violence against Aschirò on an individual level mirrors the collective violence perpetrated against the indigenous population by colonial authorities.

For Isabella, the reunion with her birthmother offers the potential to heal the trauma caused by her father’s heinous crimes against Aschirò. Sadly, her meeting with Aschirò is not what she had hoped for. Isabella gradually realises that Aschirò cannot provide the motherly love she

111

missed as a child. The woman she fantasised about while growing up is revealed to be a fantasy.

Isabella laments: “Non aveva saputo restituirmi l’affetto che m’ero persa e a cui pensavo di avere diritto. [Aschirò] era una donna spigolosa, mezzo analfabeta, resa scabra dalla vita. A ruoli invertiti, sarebbe stata una perfetta Flora Virdis” (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012, 434).

Rather than providing closure, Isabella’s reunion with her birthmother perpetuates intergenerational trauma. Instead of forging a lasting bond with Aschirò, Isabella admits that their relationship has been irreparably damaged by her father’s decision to take her with him to Italy. Isabella finds herself ostracised from both cultures. After being mistreated by her stepmother, Isabella remains unable to relate to Aschirò and rekindle the sense of Somali identity she lost while being raised as an Italian.

Motherhood, identity and trauma

In Timira and Oltre Babilonia cultural identity is closely tied to motherhood. As we have just seen, for Isabella her biological mother is representative of the country she was taken away from. She makes this apparent by stating: “La mia patria era l’Italia, mentre la Somalia era la mia matria” (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012, 403). After being abused by Flora and spurned by Aschirò, she is left with a feeling of incompleteness about her cultural identity. This emphasis on the mother as the carrier of Somali identity is also present in the oeuvre of Igiaba

Scego. Scego first used the neologism matria to describe her connection to Somalia in her shorty story Dismatria (2006). The theme of motherhood is a recurrent motif in her later work.

In Oltre Babilonia, mothers are portrayed as the gatekeepers of ancestral culture. Gregoria

Manzin highlights that “the figure of the mother (…) becomes a trope imbued with symbolic meaning (…). The mother is in fact intrinsically linked to the theme of the (mother) language, as well as the (mother) culture” (2014, 80). The connection between the mother tongue and motherhood is evident in the relationship between Maryam and Zuhra. Zuhra describes the comfort of listening to her mother speak in their familial language: “Mamma mi parla nella

112

nostra lingua madre. Un somalo nobile dove ogni vocale ha un senso. La nostra lingua madre

(…). In somalo ho trovato il conforto del suo utero, in somalo ho sentito le uniche ninnananne che mi ha cantato, in somalo di certo ho fatto i primi sogni” (Scego 2008, 443). Maryam’s attempts to convey her rich ancestral culture to Zuhra are stymied by the trauma that she endured. Maryam lost her parents during Italian colonialism, fled the Barre’s dictatorship only to be abandoned by Elias. She left to raise their daughter alone in Italy – unable to return to

Somalia because of the civil war. Maryam cannot speak about her past because of the pain it causes her and emotionally withdraws from her daughter, leaving Zuhra bereft of a connection to Somalia. In both Timira and Oltre Babilonia, maternal deprivation becomes synonymous with cultural loss. Zuhra describes her estrangement from her Somali heritage while holidaying in Tunisia: “Non conosco l’Africa. E dire che mi scorre sangue negro nelle vene. E che ci sono nata. Ma non è come conoscerla, in fondo. Non è proprio la stessa cosa (…). Io quindi in Africa ci sono nata e basta” (Scego 2008, 35). Similarly to Isabella, maternal deprivation produces an anxiety around cultural identity in Zuhra. In contrast to her mother, Zuhra is ashamed to speak her ancestral language. She is transfixed listening to her mother. Maryam’s Somali has the effect of making Zuhra “viaggiare dentro di lei. Vorrei stare zitta per sempre, solo ascoltarla.

Assistere al parto di una madre che partorisce la madre. Invece poi devo parlare anch’io e ogni volta la mia voce esce titubante. Sento suoni striduli, i miei, quasi mi blocco per il disgusto di sentire la mia voce tentennante. Ogni volta vorrei piangere” (Scego 2008, 445). Sadly, Zuhra is too embarrassed to respond. For Zuhra, the language is tinged by the racism and xenophobia she encounters growing up as the daughter of migrants in contemporary Italy. Her Somali words “puzzano di strade asfaltate, cemento e periferia” (Scego 2008, 443). The rift between mother and daughter has cultural as well as emotive ramifications. Maryam’s inability to speak about her past produces a lack of Somali identity for Zuhra. Similarly, in Timira, Isabella’s

113

failure to forge a meaningful connection to her birthmother creates a pattern of insecurity surrounding her cultural identity. She passes this insecurity on to her son Antar.

In Timira and Oltre Babilonia, the attempt by characters to piece their broken lives back together after colonialism is interrupted by the rise of Siad Barre. After meeting her birthmother, Isabella decides to resettle in Somalia. In the early 1960s she moves to Mogadishu with her third husband Mohamed. Mohamed studied Political Science in Rome before returning to Somalia to serve as the head of cabinet in the democratic government. Their son

Antar is born in the Somali capital in 1963. In 1969 Somalia undergoes a seismic shift from a fledgling democracy to a dictatorship and it is Antar who undergoes the most obvious traumatisation under the new regime. After Barre’s ascension to power, Antar’s father

Mohamed is targeted as an enemy of the regime. Mohamed is imprisoned for his affiliation with the overthrown government and is held captive for four years (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2

2012, 303). Upon his release, Mohamed is summoned by Barre who attempts to coerce him into working for the new administration. He refuses and finds that any opportunities for employment in Somalia have been blocked by the dictatorship, forcing him to emigrate to

Saudi Arabia. The persecution of her husband leaves Isabella to raise their child Antar singlehandedly. As the son of a dissident father and an Italo-Somali mother, Antar is particularly terrified of the regime. Somalia in the 1960s was characterised by a resurgence of strong nationalist sentiments (Antar & Wu Ming 2 2012, 396). The dissolution of AFIS (the

Italian trusteeship of Somalia) in 1960 signified the country’s liberation from foreign colonial powers. Antar is distinctly aware of his mother’s affiliation with Somalia’s imperial past. His fear of the regime is heightened by his connection to Italy. Growing up Antar is quickly made aware of his difference from his peers and has “un disperato bisogno di sentirsi uguale agli altri” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 398). His fears are fuelled by the barbaric practices used

114

by the state to guarantee the loyalty of Somalis. In the only chapter narrated exclusively by

Antar, he describes his indoctrination into authoritarianism. Antar recounts the harrowing experience of being abducted from school in a truck with his classmates and driven into the forest. The students are blindfolded and relentlessly interrogated as to why they are there.

Unable to answer, they are repeatedly hit by the soldiers until they are too frightened to speak.

Antar describes the ferocious tactics of the soldiers, who beat them, starve them, and humiliate them for three days straight:

Sono le 17.30. Siamo rimasti ciechi per quasi dieci ore ed è da questa mattina che non beviamo un sorso d’acqua (…). Dopo una notte sulla nuda terra, i militari ci svegliano con un’allegria sospetta (…). Mi mettono a sedere, le braccia legate dietro e le caviglie strette alle gambe della sedia. Uno di loro mi molla un calcio nel petto e mi rovescia per terra, gli altri con gli anfibi mi salgono sulle caviglie, pestano, calciano, poi mi tirano su e s’inventano un modo diverso per farmi cadere di nuovo e passarmi sopra con le suole (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012, 439-440).

On the third day, the delirious students are lined up. When they are again asked why they have been captured, the students mindlessly repeat the edicts of their oppressors. They reply: “Per essere educati” (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012, 442). It is evident from this pitiful response that Antar and his peers have been transformed by the experience. They are forced to kowtow to the regime, having any aspirations for change beaten out of them. Antar highlights that when the petrified students are asked where they have been by their parents and friends after returning home they only manage to respond with “ci hanno educati” (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012,

309).

The underlying trauma associated with miscegenation resurfaces in the relationship between mother and son. However, unlike his mother, who experienced racism for her Somali identity growing up in Italy, Antar fears discrimination because of his Italian identity in Somalia.

Antar’s shame over his Italian heritage manifests in his refusal to attend an Italian school. Antar rebels against his mother: “Io sono un somalo figlio di un’italiana. Se vado alla scuola italiana,

115

sembra che mi vergogno di essere somalo. E infatti è per questo che mi ci vorresti mandare, no? Così questo tuo figlio cannibale si civilizza almeno un pochino, studia la Divina commedia, impara a scrivere nella lingua di Moravia” (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012, 425). Antar’s sarcastic self-portrayal as an uncivilised cannibal highlights the legacy of intergenerational trauma that he inherited. Similarly to his mother before him, Antar exhibits an anxiety about his cultural identity. The terror of the Barre’s regime heightens Antar’s shame around his meticcio identity and perpetuates the symptoms of the intergenerational trauma he inherited from Isabella.

In 1983 Antar travels to Italy to begin his tertiary studies in Bologna, leaving his mother behind.

Neither mother nor son will find peace in their lives to heal from the trauma of colonisation and dictatorship. Less than a decade after Antar leaves Somalia, the country erupted into a horrendous civil war that forced Isabella to flee Mogadishu and return to Italy. When Siad

Barre is finally overthrown, Isabella is living in the Somali capital. An apocalyptic vision of

Somalia torn apart by clan fighting and despotic warlords is depicted in Timira, illustrating the enormity of the situation. The horrors of the conflict are meticulously reconstructed in the text to convey the fear and desperation felt by the local populace in the wake of the dictatorship.

Isabella observes that a lawless Mogadishu has been crippled by violence: “La città è nelle mani di ladri, briganti e stupratori. La polizia non esiste, i tribunali cascano a pezzi. Solo i cadí cercano di fare giustizia con l’unica legge rimasta, quella del Corano” (Mohamed & Wu Ming

2 2012, 40). The trauma of experiencing Somalia’s deterioration into mindless bloodshed is captured in one pivotal scene. Before escaping Mogadishu, Isabella travels to the house of

Doctor Farrid, a neighbour who has kept her safe in the absence of her husband. On arrival, the house appears to be abandoned. Isabella forces her way in only to discover the putrid body of her neighbour who has been indiscriminately killed by one of the many gangs that now rule

116

the city. She stares in disbelief at “il corpo di un uomo (…) riverso supino in un fango di sangue. Quattro faraone danzano attorno al cadavere, gonfiano le piume cobalto del petto e bisticciano per un boccone di interiora. Le piccole teste da avvoltoio sprofondano nel ventre, strappano la carne, si contendono a calci quel che rimane del dottor Farid” (Mohamed & Wu

Ming 2 2012, 57). The horrifying dance of the guinea fowl around the body of their deceased master mirrors the dire situation in Mogadishu. Similarly to the guinea fowl ruffling their feathers in a show of pride, gangs of militia now roam the streets warring over a small piece of the city. Mogadishu, like the corpse of Doctor Farrid, has become a rotting carcass torn apart by the various clans vying for power.

Sickened by what she has seen, Isabella makes her way to the airport. As she flies to safety in

Nairobi she glimpses the ruins of the city beneath her one last time: “Mogadiscio, la bianca

Hamar sulle rive dell’oceano, esala fumi di morte e abbandono. L’angelo nero è padrone della città” (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012, 62). Isabella’s flight from Mogadishu triggers painful memories of her departure from the city as a small child, illustrating that the trauma of colonisation has gone unresolved. The narrative of her journey from Somalia to Kenya is broken up by a flashback of the trip she made from Mogadishu to Naples as a girl. In the flashback, the young protagonist is accompanied by two Italian nuns from Turin. The nuns softly coo to the crying protagonist giving her a doll to calm her, which they curiously refer to as Timira, the protagonist’s Somali name. The nuns fuss over Isabella telling her “se smetti di piangere ti faccio tenere in braccio Timira, va bin?” (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2012, 63). As the boat moves towards Italy, Isabella feels herself losing her Somali identity. The nuns encourage her to abandon her mother’s culture. When arriving in Naples they assure Giuseppe that “in pochi giorni [Isabella] sarà di nuovo in forma, come se non si fosse mai mossa dalla

Somalia” (Mohamed & Wu Ming 2 2010, 67). They give Isabella the doll as a parting gift –

117

an object that is imbued with cultural and maternal loss. Isabella’s recollection of her childhood at this specific point in the narrative indicates that she is undergoing further traumatisation.

Flashbacks are symptomatic of unresolved trauma. Their inclusion in the narrative indicates to the reader that the protagonist is reliving a traumatic memory. Peering down at the remnants of Mogadishu, Isabella realises she will never be free of the turmoil that has engulfed her country. The life she made for herself in Mogadishu has been destroyed, and she risks an uncertain future in Italy. The protagonist bitterly accepts that she is again being forced to leave her homeland behind. Only this time, instead of viewing the imposing spires of Mogadishu’s cathedral, a testament to Italian colonial power, she is confronted by images of a city turned to rubble.

Isabella’s return to Italy does not assuage the symptoms of intergenerational trauma. Isabella struggles to find accommodation and obtain the annuities that she was entitled to as an Italian citizen escaping violence. Italian institutions fail to make sense of her identity as an Italo-

Somali and treat Isabella as an anomaly:

I documenti che custodisci sotto plastica rossa dicono verità contraddittorie. Uno afferma che sei cittadina italiana (…). L’altro che sei profuga in Italia dalla Somalia in guerra. Ma come si fa a essere profughi nello stesso paese dove si è cittadini residenti (…). O non sei davvero profuga (ma la branda dove stai sdraiata suggerise il contrario) oppure non sei cittadina (ma allora il governo italiano ti avrebbe lasciato crepare in Somalia) (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 459). Despite Giuseppe’s intentions that his daughter would be raised as an Italian citizen and enjoy all the privileges that citizenship entailed, neither Isabella nor her son benefit from their Italian identity. Isabella remarks that she has condemned her son to a precarious future as an Italo-

Somali: “Profugo è tuo figlio Antar, e la cittadinanza italiana che ha tanto inseguito è solo un inganno” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 463). The trauma of miscegenation culminates in

Isabella’s struggle to have her identity recognised by the authorities to avoid destitution and vagrancy. In response to the resistance she faces to her identity, Isabella narrates her testimony

118

to whoever will listen. This leads to the act of witnessing between the protagonist – the trauma victim, and various interlocutors who assume the role of an empathetic listener, which will be discussed in the following chapter.

Intergenerational trauma as abandonment and neglect

Timira is unique in that the protagonist Isabella lives through colonisation, dictatorship, and civil war. In contrast, Oltre Babilonia focuses on a medley of characters from different generations and backgrounds who are all connected via a legacy of pain that originates in colonial Somalia. Here the symptoms of intergenerational trauma find their expression as abandonment and neglect. Aggrieved parents withhold traumatic memory and implode psychologically. Majid, Elias, and Maryam engage in a “conspiracy of silence” (Dekel &

Goldblatt 2008, 285) to cope with trauma in which “sensitive subjects are avoided to prevent

(…) distress from intensifying” (Dekel & Golblatt 2008, 285). The coping mechanism of silence ultimately fails because their “children detect and receive clues about the past (…)

[from] their parent’s present behaviour” (Dekel & Goldblatt 2008, 285). Notwithstanding their parent’s silence, children who have been raised by trauma victims, like Elias and later Zuhra,

“intuit repressed, dissociated, and warded off trauma that lurks behind the aggressive and traumatic overtones that are found in adulting parenting styles” (Auehahn & Laub 1998, 37).

Despite their best attempts to conceal their respective pasts, the characters of Majid and later

Elias and Maryam pass trauma on to the next generation through their erratic and dysfunctional parenting styles. All three characters are so consumed by their personal torment that they fail to realise the effects that their grief is having on their children.

Intergenerational trauma begins with the story of Zuhra’s and Mar’s paternal grandparents,

Famey and Majid, which is narrated by Elias. Elias records this story onto cassette for his daughter Zuhra to explain his own shortcomings as a father. Elias draws on his imagination to

119

create the narrative of his parents’ trauma at the hands of German and Italian soldiers.

According to Dekel and Golblatt, children often resort to imagined narratives to make sense of their parents’ suffering. They argue that “lack of knowledge or partial knowledge can lead to imaginary completion of the missing details, and the made-up story may even be more frightening than the real one” (2008, 285). Elias grants himself the creative freedom to fill the gaps in his parents’ lives left by the silence of grief. By narrating his parents’ suffering Elias begins to come to terms with the trauma that overshadowed his childhood. He fashions his parents’ lives into a fable, beginning with: “Ti racconterò tutto come se non fosse la mia storia, ma come se ti raccontassi la storia di un altro. In terza persona. Sentiremo meno dolore” (Scego

2008, 63). By informing his estranged daughter that ‘we’ will feel less pain Elias makes reference to the intergenerational symptoms of trauma. He has the foresight to recognise that the trauma he experienced in his life does not begin with or end with him. Instead, by narrating his testimony, Elias unravels a thread of trauma that spans three generations originating from one fateful day in colonial Somalia when Famey and Majd are accosted by a band of fascist and Nazi troops while travelling to Mogadishu to attend a wedding. The troops are spurred on by a particularly sadistic German colonel to rape, brutalise, and murder passengers. Famey and

Majid suffer the same fate and are both sexually assaulted. Elias describes the mayhem below:

Fu il finimondo. Tutti violentati, senza distinzione di sesso, picchiati, umiliati. A Farah, quello che viaggiava con la moglie, fu lo stesso gerarca tedesco a tagliare le palle - subito afferrate da due avvoltoi che si aggiravano attirati dal puzzo di morte. Famey e il cugino subirono la stessa sorte. Lei fu presa da tre uomini diversi. Due italiani e un tedesco (…) con il secondo e il terzo fu anche abbastanza collaborativa, tanto era inutile, nessuno l’avrebbe salvata da quell’incubo. Con la coda dell’occhio vide che era proprio Guglielmi a violentare Majid (Scego 2008, 68-69).

Both characters have their identities radically altered after they are brutally raped. Majid is emasculated by the event and feels inadequate as a husband and a father. He is unable to forget the horrifying experience he endured and, in his own eyes, forfeits his masculinity as a consequence. Majid and Famey only confide in each other over their rape. Rather than telling

120

anyone, Famey and Majid keep quiet and decide to marry, realising that they are already wedded to each other by “quel dolore indicibile” (Scego 2008, 159). Kalí Tal identifies this response to trauma as a form of ‘disappearance’, in which a victim refuses to acknowledge the existence of trauma tout court (1996, 6). Their silence over the event protects the couple from further traumatisation. Auehahn and Laub contend that denying the existence of psychological distress is an instinctual response to violence. They claim that “erecting barriers against knowing is often the first response to trauma” (1998, 23). The event is so overwhelming that it is walled off from conscious memory and cannot be recalled.

Trauma relentlessly intrudes into Famey and Majids’ lives and both characters begin to deteriorate psychologically. Despite their attempts to appear as a happy couple Majid confesses to his wife “cugina, non sono più un uomo” (Scego 2008, 118). He suffers from impotence and remains alienated from his sexual identity. Famey is incredibly supportive of her new husband throughout the ordeal. Elias describes that when she and her husband are left lying bloody on the sand after being raped “lei gli aveva preso le mani tra le sue” (Scego 2008, 118). Famey’s apparent fortitude fools Majid into believing that “lei non aveva perso la voglia di vivere”

(Scego 2008, 118). Despite her calm exterior “Famey sentiva un dolore acuto nel basso ventre.

Di notte vedeva gli occhi di quegli uomini bianchi (…) ogni volta si svegliava sudata. Poi guardava Majid e ogni notte si ricordava che era lei quella forte. Lui non sapeva dei suoi incubi, non avrebbe potuto consolarla del resto. Si sentiva ferito nella sua umanità e nella sua dignità”

(Scego 2008, 118). Famey never recovers from her psychological affliction. She is rendered almost catatonic by the event. Elias recounts: “Ormai si sentiva svuotata (…) Famey se lo sentiva da quel giorno, che sarebbe morta presto. Forse lo era già, ma rifiutava di ammetterlo a se stessa” (Scego 2008, 121). In an effort to dull the pain of rape, Famey manages to suppress the past. Unfortunately, her failure to confront trauma renders Famey incapable of feeling

121

anything at all. Eventually, she and Majid consummate the marriage and she falls pregnant with Elias. Despite carrying a baby, Famey is emotionally numb after her rape and “voleva solo esaurire le energie” (Scego 2008, 121). She is spared the agony of living with her traumatic past any longer and dies in childbirth.

Majid is left to raise their son Elias alone. He is devastated by the passing of his wife and fellow trauma survivor. Majid is forced to suffer alone, having refused to confide his pain in anyone else. When Elias is born, he does not fill the void left by Famey’s death. Instead the child heightens Majid’s grief. As he grows up, Elias bears a striking similarity to Famey in appearance and “tutti cercavano in lui un altrove impossibile. La verità era che in trasparenza tutti cercavano Famey. Il bambino era solo la sua emanazione” (Scego 2008, 203). Elias’s physical likeness to Famey tortures Majid, who cannot view the boy without seeing his dead wife. Elias’s image evokes that of his mother, the one individual who knew about Majid’s rape and understood his pain. Majid attempts to provide for Elias after his wife’s death. He marries another woman, Bushra, to care for his son, and takes a job as a cook for an Italian family living in Mogadishu. Unfortunately, he frequently suffers from traumatic flashbacks that eventually lead to his nervous breakdown. Majid is continually plagued by intrusive memories of the event that are emotionally devastating. He develops insomnia as his traumatic memories return as nightmares. Elias describes his father’s torment in the following words:

Dormiva sempre così poco e quel poco funestato dagli incubi. In tutti i suoi deliri notturni vedeva la faccia di quel fascista che lo aveva spezzato. Sentiva quella sensazione di bollore che gli aveva trapassato l’ano. Sentiva sempre quel caldo orrendo (…). Vedeva poi i suoi sfortunati compagni di viaggio. Sopratutto vedeva il cadavere di quel disgraziato che era stato ucciso. Mentre il fascista lo traforava, Majid pensava: ‘Come avrei preferito essere lui, il morto’ (Scego 2008, 159).

Majid’s reliving of physical abuse is symptomatic of trauma. Schwab states that along with psychological pain trauma is accompanied by “an entire arsenal of deadly intimate sensorial memories” (2010, 170). The symptoms of trauma are experienced through violently somatic

122

memories for Majid. His nightmares trigger the physical sensations of fear and repulsion over his rape. Eventually, the random fragments of traumatic memory begin to punctuate his consciousness during the daytime as well. Michael Molino observes that trauma victims have no control over their recollection: “A traumatic experience can remain buried in silent blind spots of memory, relived at unanticipated moments, and experienced with distortions and displacements” (2012, 325). While at work, Majid experiences a flashback. He becomes convinced that one of their dinner guests is his abuser. Majid is obsessed with exacting his revenge on the man and enters into a state of mania. Majid “non si chiese se stesse impazzendo, se avesse le traveggole, se magari il suo stupratore avesse un gemello, non si chiese nulla di sensato” (Scego 2008, 322). Trauma distorts his memory and he refuses to believe that the dinner guest could be anyone other than his rapist. In Majid’s hysteria, he considers murdering the dinner guest. Instead, he flees the house and disappears completely, leaving Bushra and

Elias behind. The symptoms of trauma exhibited by Famey and Majid had grave repercussions for their son Elias.

Absent fathers, troubled mothers

Elias is incredibly hurt by the actions of Majid. While Bushra is a wonderful mother to him, he craves the love of his father and is troubled by the passing of his mother. As an adult, Elias attempts to overcome his upsetting childhood by marrying a local girl, Maryam. Their courtship coincides with the liberation of Somalia from the Italian trusteeship, a period in which Somalis were still excited about the prospect of independence. Swept up in an atmosphere of hope and optimism for the future, Elias and Maryam are initially blind to the megalomania of Barre (Scego 2008, 103). The couple marries in Somalia and Maryam falls pregnant with their daughter Zuhra. The brutality of the regime soon begins to take its toll on the relationship. Elias follows in Majid’s footsteps and becomes a tailor, a profession that allows him to feel close to his absent father. Like Antar in Timira Elias is victimised by the

123

authorities. Tailors are considered decadent under Barre, and Elias “non lavorava quasi più. I suoi modelli, le sue stoffe erano state considerate sovversive dell’ordine proletario (…)

Degenerazioni capitaliste. Sprechi imperialisti” (Scego 2008, 423). Elias crumbles under the relentless intimidation by the regime and begins to slip into paranoia. His wife notices that “era

[sempre] perso tra cospirazioni e allucinazioni politiche” (Scego 2008, 425). Elias gradually pulls away from Maryam emotionally and retreats into his private fantasies of persecution. On the day of Zuhra’s birth he is unrecognisable having been completely changed by trauma. The narrative voice explains Maryam’s shock when sees her husband again for the first time: “Non immaginava che la delusione potesse trasformare il suo Elias, così curioso e dolce, in un vegetale cattivo e arido (…). Quando Elias si presentò alla sua porta, Maryam si rese conto che non lo vedeva da ormai venti giorni. Che lui dormiva sempre nella sua bottega e che ogni minuto era dedicato alla cospirazione” (Scego 2008, 425). Majid’s psychological distress under the dictatorship magnified the pre-existing trauma of his mother’s death and father’s disappearance. Elias adopts the same flawed coping mechanisms as his father. Majid

“congelava le sue emozioni così tanto che un blocco di ghiaccio al suo confronto era caldo (...).

Congelava le sue emozioni e nello stesso tempo friggeva. Era tutto freddo e tutto caldo dentro”

(Scego 2008, 309). Elias emulates his father by repressing his emotions, allowing them to congeal completely. Consequently, he cannot alleviate his suffering and re-enacts his childhood trauma as an adult.

Elias goes into exile in Italy to escape Somalia, leaving his wife and daughter behind. There he grows even more distant from his wife. Once in Rome he has an affair with an Argentinian woman, Miranda, and fathers another daughter, Mar. Elias has nothing to do with Mar, and

Miranda raises her alone. I will return to Miranda’s and Mars’ troubled lives in chapter four.

In 1975 Maryam follows her husband to Rome (Scego 2008, 101). Rather than confiding his

124

trauma in his family, Elias cuts himself off from his loved ones. He again abandons his wife and child and disappears back to Africa. There, he becomes nomadic like his father before him, endlessly wandering the continent in the hope of escaping his tortured past. His step-mother

Bushra outlines the parallels between father and son in the following quote: “Il figlio che segue le orme del padre. Il figlio che abbandona una donna come il padre. Il figlio con un dolore troppo grande da condividere, come il padre” (Scego 2008, 433). Intergenerational trauma does not infect the otherwise healthy character of Elias. Instead, his persecution by Barre’s regime brings to the surface the latent trauma of his childhood abandonment. Elias then passes the syptoms of trauma on to his children by repeating his father’s actions and in turn abandoning them.

Maryam is left to raise a child by herself. Despite her attempt to care for Zuhra she is unable to cope in a foreign country with a small child. Maryam is desperate to return home but recognises that it is too dangerous to go back to Somalia now that it is ruled by a tyrant. The narrator voices her absolute contempt for Siad Barre: “Maryam si ricordava a memoria tutti i suoi discorsi. Studiava le sue parole per poterle usare un giorno nell’aula di un tribunale internazionale. Erano parole scritte con il sangue dei somali (...) quelli che volevano vivere una vita dignitosa” (Scego 2008, 103). Maryam is never given the satisfaction of seeing Barre brought to justice. Instead, he went into exile and the country was plunged into civil war.

Maryam’s distress over the civil war is heightened by the sense of impotency she feels being powerless to aid her country. She is forced to watch it disintegrate slowly and inexorably, and tells her daughter: “La Somalia ora è solo la sua guerra. La gente non sa altro, Zuhra mia”

(Scego 2008, 250). The civil war prolongs the intergenerational legacy of trauma as Maryam and Zuhra are unable to return to Somalia to search for Elias. The link between the two women

125

and their homeland is figuratively severed in one pivotal scene in which Maryam and Zuhra watch the murder of Italian reporter Ilaria Alpi on live television:

Le due donne restarono ipnotizzate. Il sangue aveva sporcato tutto: la macchina, la gente intorno e il biondo dei capelli di una donna, di (…) Ilaria Alpi, che da mesi descriveva a loro somale la Somalia che si stava liquefacendo (…). Qual sangue riguardava anche loro, sopratutto loro (…). C’era solo lo schermo pieno dei capelli insanguinati di Ilaria” (Scego 2008, 57).

Unlike Isabella, who lives through the destruction of Mogadishu firsthand, Maryam and Zuhra experience the trauma of civil war in absentia. The tangled mess of hair and blood obfuscates the two women’s only direct connection to their lost homeland, achieved through television.

Somalia has imploded into a seemingly eternal conflict. The gushing blood of Ilaria Alpi serves as a metaphor for the mass exodus of Somalis fleeing violence in their homeland, which

Maryam refers to as an “emorragia di gente, senza freni, senza pudore, eterna” (Scego 2008,

103-104). Maryam recognises that she is part of this continual flow of Somalis out of the country that shows no sign of abating.

The trauma of civil war is further accentuated by Maryam’s relocation to Italy – a country that she loathes, as I will illustrate shortly. Elias deserts her in Rome, the former heart of the Italian

Empire. The narrator explains that Maryam lost her father during Italy’s war on Ethiopia: “Suo papà era un dubat ed era andato a combattere gli etiopi in Abissinia, a invaderli, in un certo senso. Non era una bella cosa da fare. Ma fu costretto. Come tanti. Fu costretto a uccidere la gente” (Scego 2008, 108). Maryam resents his conscription into the colonial regiment and the futility of his death. Instead of dying in combat her father was killed in an accident by an Italian soldier. The narrator explains that “era stato un italiano, teoricamente della sua stessa parte, ad ammazzarlo. Stava pulendo l’arma, l’italiano, quando inavvertitamente un colpo partì (…).

Alcuni compagni d'armi sostengono che l'italiano era una carogna patentata e che il padre di

Maryam Laamane avesse detto una parola che alla carogna non piaceva affatto” (Scego 2008,

126

108). Maryam is distraught over the loss of her father, who was deemed expendable by the colonial regiment. She cannot believe that his life was used as collateral in a senseless war that turned Somalia against Ethiopia. The manslaughter of Maryam’s father sends shockwaves through the family and her mother cannot cope: “Padre andato. Verità incerta. Per il dolore, la madre morì poco dopo di crepacuore” (Scego 2008, 108). The imperial ambitions of Italy devastate the Laamane family and render Maryam parentless. She never truly recovers from the grief of her father’s death and carries a grudge against Italians for the rest of her life.

Maryam’s heartache over the death of her parents goes unacknowledged by Italians, who remain indifferent to their colonial past. This is demonstrated in one scene in which Maryam encounters a local vagrant reciting Mussolini’s imperial speech (Scego 2008, 107). She is outraged and expects Italians to react similarly to her by publicly condemning the man, or at least by expressing their consternation over his actions. Instead, passers-by seemingly ignore him. Maryam is disillusioned by their blatant disregard of this resurrection of colonial rhetoric

– the same rhetoric that justified the devastation of her country and her family. The unresolved trauma of her parents’ death prevents Maryam from ever really identifying with or embracing

Italian society and culture. She blames Italians for the violence that has engulfed her country, decrying “è colpa di questi italiani se oggi stiamo messi male” (Scego 2008, 250). Her insular mentality and refusal to adapt to life in a new country is psychologically damaging to both her and her daughter. She remains trapped in the past and continues to regard all Italians with suspicion, referring to them as gaals or infidels in Somali. This reluctance to forge a new life and a new identity in Italy cripples Maryam emotionally. She spends most of her time at home and only enjoys meeting up with her best friend Howa to reminisce about Somalia. Maryam eventually turns to alcohol to alleviate her sorrow. She is so engrossed in her plight that she fails to protect Zuhra from the sexual abuse she suffers at school. The mother’s and daughter’s

127

utter misfortune is encapsulated in the following quote: “Una madre vinta dall’odore dell’esilio. Una madre che in quel paese nuovo, l’Italia, aveva abbandonato ogni suo principio e ogni suo sogno. Quella madre aveva sofferto molto (...). Mentre Maryam inseguiva ricordi e gin, la figlia marciva lentamente in un collegio. E soffriva la pene di ogni inferno” (Scego

2008. 347). Maryam’s judgement over her daughter’s safety is clouded by her trauma. Due to her parents’ death, the loss of her husband and her exile from Somalia Maryam is not emotionally resilient enough to care for Zuhra.

Howa intervenes in lieu of Maryam and takes Zuhra out of the school. However, it is already too late. As the victim of sexual abuse, Zuhra undergoes intolerable suffering. She describes in detail the ongoing molestation she experienced at the hands of Aldo, the school janitor, and her fear of telling anyone: “Quel signore, Aldo (...) si interessava troppo alla mia vagina (...).

Quando gli altri non lo vedevano, lui provava ad accarezzarla, mi schiacciava contro i muri (...) dovevo gridare, dirlo a qualcuno. Ma in collegio nessuno crede mai a noi bambine” (Scego

2008, 285-286). Zuhra’s plight can be interpreted as the culmination of a legacy of trauma passed down to her from her grandparents and parents. On tape, Elias admits to Zuhra: “Sono stato un fallito (…) Non sono riuscito ad amare le donne che mi hanno amato, non sono riuscito a condividere con voi figlie i miei giorni” (Scego 2008, 231). Zuhra attributes her molestation to the absence of Elias, and Maryam’s alcoholism and negligence. When remembering her abuse Zuhra whispers to herself: “Forse tu, uomo nero, mi avresti salvata dallo stupro (…).

Dov’eri uomo nero? Perché non mi hai salvata? Ogni tanto vorrei chiedere a Maryam Laamane il nome di mio padre. Se lo avessi avuto con me, forse lui ti avrebbe impedito di portarmi in collegio” (Scego 2008, 229). Zuhra views paternal deprivation as the catalyst for her trauma.

Without Elias to protect her, Zuhra was rendered defenceless. She was left in the hands of

Maryam, a woman suffering from alcoholism and severe depression.

128

Zuhra responds to trauma by withdrawing into her own private pain. She cannot freely discuss her ordeal and has trouble forming intimate relationships. Like her grandfather Majid, Zuhra experiences traumatic memory somatically. In one pivotal scene, Zuhra begins to kiss a man she met on holiday in Tunisia. The kiss triggers memories of her abuse: “Orlando e il suo bacio, mi hanno ricordato Aldo e i muri del collegio. Orlando non è Aldo (…). Però nella mia testa è diventato Aldo. E mi ha fatto tornare la paura” (Scego 2008, 338). The memories of Aldo are so painful that they cause Zuhra to have a violent fit and she collapses. Zuhra is still unable to fully confront her pain. Instead, traumatic memory remains sequestered within her unconscious and fails to be expressed to others. Zuhra reveals that “non ho l’epilessia. Ma ho le crisi, ogni tanto (…) La psicologa mi hatto che ‘può succedere a ragazze che…’ ALT. STOP. (…) Non voglio aprire questo capitolo” (Scego 2008, 343). Zuhra resents Maryam for her inaction over her molestation. The two women are unable to confide in each other. Zuhra explains: “Non parliamo tanto io e lei. Non ci riusciamo (…). Le leggo il dolore in faccia. Il senso di colpa per avermi lasciato da piccola in quel collegio (…). Mi è successa una cosa orrenda (…), ma ora basta, ti prego. Vorrei voltare pagina” (Scego 2008, 81). As I will explain in the following chapter, it is only by engaging in the act of witnessing that mother and daughter break the cycle of intergenerational trauma.

Chapter three has examined the symptoms of intergenerational trauma. The chapter provided a theoretical discussion of intergenerational trauma to better understand what allowed trauma suffered by one generation to adversely affect the next generation. It went on to track the legacies of intergenerational trauma in the selected texts that culminate in the dire situations faced by characters who migrated to or grew up in contemporary Italy. As I outline in the

129

following chapter, characters engage in the act of witnessing either as victims or as empathetic listeners to heal the trauma at the heart of their families and communities.

130

Chapter 4 - Witnessing

I miei pensieri vagarono senza direzione precisa, poi si soffermarono sugli incontri di Giorgios: il vecchio vescovo, Abbaba Igirsà Salò, Dinke e la signora della tartaruga. Pensai alle loro storie. Quanto erano in contraddizione le loro parole con quello che tante volte mi ero sentita ripetere in Italia: ‘Vi abbiamo costruito le strade, le scuole, le case…’. Ogni volta avevo sorriso inghiottendo amaro, senza sapere come controbattere, ma ora sarebbe diverso. Al mio ritorno, al primo che si fosse azzardato a pronunciare quelle frasi stupide avrei risposto per le rime (Ghermandi 2007, 236-237).

Upon her return to Ethiopia, Mahlet is irrevococably changed by her exposure to the testimonies of those who suffered during the Italian occupation of her homeland. The platitudes she was forced to listen to while studying in Bologna ring hollow after witnessing the pain of the stories told by the people who lived through colonisation. Drawing on Felman and Laub’s theory of witnessing, this chapter analyses the renegotiation of a traumatic memory through its transmission at the level of the narrative. This refers to acts of witnessing taking place between traumatised protagonists and characters acting as empathetic listeners. Irene Kacandes, a scholar of trauma and memory studies, observes that there are multiple levels of witnessing, both textual and metatextual, that occur in trauma novels: “In accounting for a literary text, one needs to investigate components of witnessing at the level of the story (that is, the events that make up the plot), at the level of the text (that is, the specific forms the telling of these events take), and at the level of the production and reception of the text” (1999, 56). In this chapter and the next, my analysis highlights witnessing on all three levels outlined by Kacandes. In each instance, I analyse a character or author as victim, and the trauma they are attempting to recall, and a character, author, or reader as empathetic listener. Authors employ different strategies to represent and convey trauma to readers. In this chapter I examine witnessing in the narratives of Regina and Timira. In the case of Regina, witnessing refers to Ghermandi’s use of Mahlet for the retelling of traumatic memories of colonialism. I demonstrate that the author structures the text so that Mahlet’s self-actualisation as a cantora is contingent upon her witnessing the testimonies of trauma victims. In the case of Timira witnessing is performed

131

through co-authorship between Wu Ming 2 and Antar Mohamed. In this chapter I consider

Oltre Babilonia only briefly, towards the end of the chapter, since witnessing does not feature prominently.

Witnessing

I employ Felman and Laub’s concept of witnessing as a theoretical framework to analyse trauma novels. In my discussion of intergenerational trauma in the previous chapter, I indicated that victims struggle to recall trauma within conscious memory. Trauma cognitively incapacitates victims and renders them unable to actively recall and process their memory of a terrifying event. They experience symptoms that interrupt, stifle, and obstruct their recollection of trauma. When victims do manage to summon up their terrifying past from the recesses of the mind, the memory they produce is inchoate and fragmentary. Traumatic memory only becomes comprehensible to the victim through its retelling to an empathetic listener. Felman and Laub attest to the centrality of the listener in the testimonial process arguing that it is vital for victims to articulate and externalise their trauma to an audience to reconstitute their identity

(2013, 28). It is only in the presence of a listener that traumatic memories begin to finally cohere into a fully formed, intelligible account of the past.

The act of witnessing is an incredibly fragile process that requires both parties – the trauma victim and the listener – to act in synchrony for testimony to come into being (Kopf 2009, 51).

As Marina Kopf highlights “narrating trauma (…) constitutes a highly complex process marked by the paradoxical relationship between language, memory and trauma” (2009, 43), a process that is characterised by both “the difficulty to tell and the difficulty to listen” (Kopf 2009, 51) to trauma. Witnessing is not the guaranteed outcome of every attempt by victims to confide their traumatic memory in a listener. The dialogic space that emerges through witnessing needs

132

to be nurtured by the mutual trust of both parties to be sustained long enough for the listener to enter into the victim’s pain.

In the following section, I describe the difficulty for characters – victims to confide their traumatic memories in a character – listener. I then compare the process of recalling and narrating trauma to a listener with the act of translation. I go on to discuss the role of the listener. In my application of Felman and Laub’s theory, I emphasise the role that listeners play in reshaping traumatic memory into narrative form, a process that I refer to as renegotiation. I outline the incredible burden that accompanies the act of listening to accounts of anguish and suffering. The listeners accompany the victims on the perilous voyage into traumatic memory

– they suffer with the victims, feel their agony, trepidation, and dread. This momentary glimpse into the victim’s pain leaves an indelible mark on the listener. In the case of the selected texts, the listener is forced to confront the devastating effects of colonial violence and its traumatic lineage in Somalia and Ethiopia. For certain characters who assume the role of the listener like

Mahlet and Zuhra, the act of witnessing shines a light on the gruelling accounts of colonialism and dicatorship that both characters sensed lurking in their ancestral backgrounds. For other characters discussed in this chapter, like Carlo and Antonio, assuming the role of the listener generates new insight into the colonial past that may have otherwise remained out of reach.

The choise of Italian characters, like Carlo and Antonio as empathetic listeners in the selected works clearly indicates to Italian readers of trauma novels that they also have a role to play in working through trauma. As I have previously highlighted, intergenerational trauma has over several generations travelled back to Italy, clinging to victims and their kin. Trauma novels illustrate to Italian readers that this trauma refuses to be forgotten and requires a space in which to emerge and be worked through; a space that witnessing can provide through the encounter between a trauma victim and a listener.

133

In the trauma novels analysed here, the act of witnessing can be derailed at any moment. If doubt or suspicion creeps into the relationship between the victim and their listener, then the process can easily be disrupted. Laub and Auerhahn affirm: “A prerequisite for telling is knowledge that the listener can affirm one’s experience by really listening (…). A fractured relationship cannot turn into dialogue” (1990, 447). The difficulty faced by the victim relates to the mutual trust required for witnessing to occur. For victims, the act of retelling trauma is inherently hazardous. The victims risk recalling an event that was so traumatic it threatened a complete dissolution of their selfhood. To unleash a traumatic memory in all its ferocity back into consciousness represents a terrifying prospect for victims who have already suffered. For this reason, the victims face the ardous task of seeking out an individual capable and willing to receive their testimony, transforming “a wordless, psychotic experience (…) [into] a human one” (Auerhahn & Laub 1990, 451). The victims must entrust their memories to a listener knowing fully well that if witnessing fails to take place, they may be plunged back into turmoil.

Coupled with this fear of reliving their trauma, victims typically no longer believe in the capacity of others to understand their experience. Trauma fundamentally challenges victims’

“expectation of empathy – of the possibility of mutual recognition of the self in the other”

(Auerhahn & Laub 1990, 448). Victims have experienced an event so shocking that it is outside the normal range of human comprehension. The prospect of finding an individual willing to witness the memory of such an aberrant event may seem impossibe to victims, placing them in the difficult position of desperately needing to transmit their trauma despite having lost faith in their ability to do so.

Translating trauma

Despite the perils that witnessing poses to the victim Kopf argues that it is a necessary step in the healing process: “To make the traumatic impact of the experience lose its weight, some sort of translation of traumatic memory into narrative memory has to take place. The production of

134

a healing or intergrating narrative demands that a certain circuit of communication comes into being. This process is open ended, it must not be misunderstood as a simple reconstruction of past events” (2009, 55). Kopf aptly compares the process of witnessing to that of translation.

She contends that for healing to take place victims must translate traumatic memory, which is fragmented, atemporal, and asocial into its opposite, namely narrative memory, which is cohesive, chronological and is able to be shared with others. According to Susan Brison, while traumatic memories “are passively endured, narratives are the result of certain obvious choices

(for example, how much to tell to whom, in what order, and so forth” (1999, 45). Victims can exert influence over trauma by coalescing the shards of memory into narrative form, ascribing them a temporal order and placing them within the larger context of their life story.

Gabriela Stoicea echoes Kopf’s position that “working through a trauma always involves some sort of translation” (2006, 46). Stoicea highlights that for trauma to be externalised to a listener it must be extricated from an abject, wordless space of the mind and born into language.

Victims require the presence of a listener for this process of translation to occur. Felman and

Laub reaffirm that it is “the encounter and the coming together between the (...) [victim] and the listener, which makes possible something like a repossession of” (Felman & Laub 2013,

85) traumatic memory. The presence of the listener mitigates against the risk of retraumatisiation occuring during the act of translating traumatic memory into narrative memory. The listener represents a bridge between two worlds – the normal, everyday reality of the present, and the terrible reality in which trauma resides. Given that the listeners are

“firmly rooted in the normal world” (Auerhahn & Laub 1990, 454), they provide a lifeline ready to haul the victims out of the abyss of their darkest memories to return them to reality.

135

I explore the concept of translating trauma further in the example of Woizero Bekelech in

Regina. I illustrate the threat posed to witnessing by the act of translation. For Stoicea “the necessity for translation (…) [is] emblematic of the radical foreignness of all traumatic experience even to its own participants” (2006, 43). Stoicea’s concept of radical foreigness refers to the fact that trauma is by its very definition inaccessible to the victim. Trauma is walled off from consciousness by mechanisms like repression, described in the previous chapter. Bekelech’s fear of the radical foreigness of trauma is intensified by the act of translation. Bekelech entrusts her testimony, which is intended for her family back in Ethiopia, to Antonio. Antonio is charged with translating letters into Amharic, a language he speaks due to his time spent in Ethiopia during the Italian occupation. Bekelech’s fear of the radical otherness of trauma transforms Antonio, the translator, into a figure of suspicion and disquiet.

In the case of Bekelech, once traumatic memory has been recalled and narrated it must then survive the translation into another language, that of written Amharic. A language that she cannot understand due to her illiteracy. Bekelech is confronted by her “lack of control over the act of translation per se and over what is lost in the process. This loss indexicalises that which can never be accessed in trauma” (2006, 46). Translation poses the threat that some fundamental aspect of traumatic experience will be lost, escape signification and recede back into the depths of the mind, out of reach from the victim. It is not until Bekelech assuages this fear of translation and learns to trust Antonio that he begins to act as an empathetic listener, allowing witnessing to occur.

The vicissitudes of translation: the case of Woizero Bekelech

In Regina, an example of witnessing at the level of the narrative can be found in the story of

Woizero Bekelech. After returning to Ethiopia a despondent Mahlet is placed under the tutelage of the elderly hermit Abba Chereka to guide her through the grieving process. Unbeknown to the protagonist, Abba Chereka is in fact Hailè Teklai – the commander of Yacob’s militia group

136

during the Ethiopian resistance (Ghermandi 2007, 295). Before Yacob’s death, Abba Chereka promised an ailing Yacob that he would help Mahlet recover the memory of her promise. The hermit takes the distraught protagonist to pray at the monastery of Giorgis – a potent symbol of the Ethiopian resistance to Italian rule. During the Italian occupation, “numerous monasteries and churches of Ethiopia continued to be centres of resistance and propaganda and to offer sanctuary to the patriots” (Berhe 2003, 100) 19. Every day, while sitting on a bench at the monastery the protagonist is approached by a gamut of characters. One such character is

Woizero Bekelech. Bekelech is eager to confide in the protagonist, who is still uncomfortable with her role as an empathetic listener. Mahlet reluctantly agrees to witness the testimony of

Bekelech telling her: “Io non raccolgo storie, ma se voleste raccontarmi la vostra, sarei contenta di ascoltarla” (Ghermandi 2007, 241). Bekelech then begins to recount the trauma of the twenty years she spent away from her homeland working as a housekeeper in Bologna.

Bekelech began her life in Italy on the outskirts of Bologna working for a family – the

Mandriolis. While she tries to accept her new surroundings, Bekelech is desperately lonely.

Rather than finding solace in the quiet countryside of Emilia-Romagna she is terrified.

Bekelech recalls: “Non riuscivo a comprendere il verso della vita in quel posto. C’era qualcosa di terribilmente sbagliato (…). Quel silenzio mi sembrava carico di cattivi presagi. Di morte, piuttosto che di vita” (Ghermandi 2007, 246). The muted landscape takes on sinister associations in comparison with the frenetic communal lifestyle she is used to in Ethiopia

(Ghermandi 2007, 246). Bekelech is gradually worn down by life with the Mandriolis and

19 The Orthodox Church and its clergy “took it as an everyday obligation, inside and outside the church, to renounce the incursion of Italian invaders in a free country” (Berhe 2003, 98). Churches were also sites of extreme violence during colonialism. After an attack on Italian dignitaties in 1937, the Governor General of Addis Ababa Rodolfo Graziani “ordered random retaliatory measures to be carried out and Italian soldiers went out killing virtually anyone in sight, burning houses and churches (…), and clubbing children to death” (Berhe 2003, 104). The monastery is emblematic of both resistance and bloodshed and represents fertile ground for the recollection of memories of colonialism.

137

realises that she made a mistake moving to Italy. She remembers the parting words of her mother: “Lascia perdere. Non partire. I talian sono tutti sollato. Ti venderanno” (Ghermandi

2007, 245). At the time Bekelech dismissed her mother’s prejudice, believing that her fear of

Italians stemmed from a bygone colonial era. In hindsight, Bekelech begins to believe her mother due to the “feelings of cultural and racial superiority” (Triulzi 2006, 433) the

Mandriolis exhibit over her.

This is demonstrated through derogatory comments made by Franca, the lady of the house.

When she asks signora Franca for a raise in wages she is severely scolded. Franca retorts: “Bel ringraziamento! Con tutto quello che abbiamo fatto per te! Questo è il tuo modo di ringraziarci

(…). Siamo noi che ti abbiamo portato fuori da quel tuo buco africano” (Ghermandi 2007,

250). These comments betray the “longstanding racial clichés and prejudices from the past”

(Triulzi 2006, 434) that Franca holds in believing that she rescued Bekelech from her own primitive backwardness in Ethiopia. Bekelech remains cooped up in the Mandrioli house, her confidence eroded from the demeaning comments of Franca. She begins to pray to escape from her claustrophobic existence: “Oh Dio d’Etiopia, proteggimi. Dio d’Etiopia, fa’ che possa tornare a casa sana e salva, quando tu ne decreterai il momento. Non farmi impazzire in questo silenzio” (Ghermandi 2007, 246). The trauma of isolation is compounded by the racism that

Bekelech encounters living in the Mandrioli household. Signora Anna, the elderly mother of

Franca, fetishizes Bekelech by continually asking her demeaning questions, such as

“senti…ma…ci sono cannibali da voi?. Senti…ma…le avete le case o avete solo le capanne?”

(Ghermandi 2007, 246). Initially Bekelech ignores Anna. However, these patronising queries become increasingly vulgar and intrusive. Eventually, Bekelech snaps when Anna asks her:

“‘Senti, ma li avete anche voi i peli lì?’ (…) Puntando gli occhi tra le mie gambe (…). Si avvincinò di qualche passo, come se qualcuno potesse sentirci, e sussurrò: ‘Lì, sulla figa!’”

138

(Ghermandi 2007, 251). Soon afterwards Bekelech resigns. She confronts Franca and finally musters the courage to admit that she is unable to be a plaything for Anna’s titillation: “Mi ha preso per un oggetto, una vostra proprietà? Non basta che mi date la metà di quello che dovreste, volete pure che inchini la testa davanti alle domande offensive di sua madre?”

(Ghermandi 2007, 251). Fortunately, Bekelech escapes from the Mandriolis and finds work with another family, the Busis, in Bologna. Once she is with them Bekelech begins to rekindle

“il calore che mi era mancato per quei due lunghi anni” (Ghermandi 2007, 252). Bekelech slowly comes to terms with the scarring experience of living separated from her loved ones and her country of origin in a suffocating household. In an effort to alleviate her homesickness, the Busi family introduce her to their elderly neighbour signor Antonio who speaks Amharic.

Antonio is overjoyed to meet Bekelech, revealing: “Al tempo dell’impero sono stato sottoufficiale nel suo paese, quattro anni. Gli ultimi due sono stato traduttore dell’amarico all’italiano (…). Mi sono imbarcato per l’Etiopia nel gennaio del ’38” (Ghermandi 207, 255).

In contrast to the Mandriolis, Antonio shows Bekelech unconditional kindness and compassion. As a result, she begins to trust Italians again. Bekelech confesses to Antonio that she has barely made contact with her family back in Ethiopia as she could not afford to call them for long on the wages she received from her previous employer. He agrees to write letters for her. To begin with, Bekelech views Antonio as a medium to convey her testimony and discounts his capacity to act as an empathetic listener. As I have explained, he is not the intended recipient of Bekelech’s testimony. The letters are addressed to her family back home.

The elderly Italian only serves to translate her words into written Amharic. Bekelech underestimates Antonio. While the role of the translator is not synonymous with that of the empathetic listener Antonio is uniquely placed to witness Bekelech’s trauma by translating for her. Sharon Dean-Cox contends that far from serving as an intermediary between the trauma

139

victim and a target audience, translators can also play an integral part in the realisation of testimony (2013, 4). They do not maintain a position of neutrality in respect to the testimony that they are exposed to and “must carry the ethical burden of guardianship, a burden beyond the initial decision to translate into considerations of how to translate” (Dean-Cox 2013, 16).

According to Dean-Cox, the burden of guardianship ensures that translators often exceed their role as messengers of testimony and are implicated in the process of witnessing.

Bekelech is wary of letting Antonio translate her testimony. She believes that her damning account of Italy may jeopardise her friendship with him: “Finalmente avrei potuto raccontare tutto (…). Ma poi mi chiesi: cosa avrebbe detto il signor Antonio dei miei pensieri? C’erano alcune cose che volevo dire di questo paese….e se si fosse offeso? (…) Oppure, se avesse scritto qualcosa di diverso da ciò che gli avrei dettato?” (Ghermandi 2007, 254). Bekelech’s reluctance to share memories of the two years she spent with the Mandriolis is a fear experienced by many trauma victims. Susan Brison observes that “we need not only the words with which to tell our stories, but also an audience able and willing to hear us and to understand our words as we intend them. This aspect of remaking a self in the aftermath of trauma highlights the dependency of the self on others” (Brison 1999, 46). As Brison highligths, trauma victims live with the existential terror that their testimony will be distorted or repudiated. Bekelech is anxious that Antonio will render her account of trauma unfaithful by misinterpreting her memories in his translation of them. Her fear is compounded by the fact that she cannot decipher written Amharic. As I outlined earlier, trauma victims view translation as a dangerous process that risks diminishing their testimony. As Dean-Cox argues, “given that a common preoccupation of (…) [trauma] survivors is the fear that they won’t be believed (…), the interlingual translation risks compounding the problems of communication inherent in the initial figurative stages of the translating experience” (2013, 3). The added component of

140

translation threatens an already delicate process of recalling trauma for a terrified victim who

“profoundly fears such knowledge, shrinks away from it and is apt to close off at any moment”

(Felman & Laub 2013, 58). Italian readers who are not familiar with Amharic are made to feel

Bekelech’s suspicion of translation due to passages of Amharic left untranslated in the text.

Like Bekelech, they cannot establish the reliability of Antonio (Ghermandi 2007, 261) and are left with no other choice than to blindly trust the elderly Italian.

To dispel her doubts once and for all Bekelech decides to call her family in Ethiopia, her financial position having markedly improved under the Busis. Fifteen days after Antonio sent the first letter Bekelech telephones home and “rispose Tesfaye [mio fratellino]. Gli chiesi se era arrivata la lettera. ‘Si è arrivata’. ‘Leggimela’, ordinai (…). La lettera di Tesfaye riconferma l’affidibilità del signor Antonio. ‘Sono fortunata - mi dissi - sono proprio fortunata ad averlo incontrato. Infine, Dio, mi hai concesso di uscire da quel buco in cui ero caduta” (Ghermandi

2007, 262-263). By honouring the intentions of Bekelech in his letters Antonio restores her trust in Italians after her harrowing experience with the Mandriolis and rescues her from

“entrapment in a fate that cannot be known, cannot be told, but can only be repeated” (Felman

& Laub 2013, 69). Through the process of letter writing Antonio exceeds his role as a translator.

Bekelech comes to view him as an empathetic listener. This establishes a consensual reality between Bekelech – the trauma victim – and Antonio – empathetic listener – and engenders the act of witnessing between them.

In an interview, Ghermandi describes that it is the very act of translation that enables Antonio to participate in the trauma of Bekelech. The authors notes that there is a “specie di scambio di posizioni, è come se l’anziano diventasse lei, e pur essendo andato in Africa a occupare l’Etiopia si ritrova quasi a essere lui l’etiope, perché è lui che ne conosce la lingua scritta, quasi

141

che attraverso la scrittura si attuasse una trasformazione” (Comberiati 2011, 148). While acting as an empathetic listener to Bekelech, Antonio begins to remember his own memories of

Africa. During his conversations with Bekelech he recalls his time as a prisoner of war in Kenya and reminisces “durante la mia prigionia in Kenia, impiegavo nove minuti per spiegare il vostro alfabeto. Facevo delle scommesse con chi voleva imparare. Se capivano in nove minuti vincevo tre sigarette” (Ghermandi 2007, 260). These rather jocular recollections of his ingenuity in the camp trigger more painful memories of regret and sorrow associated with his departure from

Ethiopia. Antonio evinces: “Sai, avevo anche scritto una grammatica amarica. Poi l’ho buttata.

Quando ho saputo che avevamo perso la seconda guerra mondiale e quindi avevamo definitivamente perso l’Etiopia, l’ho buttata nell’immondizia” (Ghermandi 2007, 260).

Antonio’s admission indicates his willingness to be an empathetic listener to Bekelech. By entrusting Bekelech with his own memories, Antonio begins to coax out the trauma that she has kept hidden. As the letter writing continues Bekelech is finally able to narrate her trauma.

She explains to Antonio that “la mia vita con la famiglia Mandrioli si è mostrata diversa da come l’avevo conosciuta ad Addis Abeba. Una volta arrivata qui hanno iniziato a comportarsi come dei padroni, che dico, come dei proprietari, quasi fossi un oggetto piuttosto che una persona” (Ghermandi 2007, 258). Rather than being outraged by her testimony, Antonio, sensing her apprehension, quite openly addresses the racism she has been subjected to:

“Bekelech, mentre vivi qui non ti devi scordare che noi siamo un branco di ignoranti. E se accetterai di vederti con i nostri occhi, ti sentirai nulla più che una selvaggia” (Ghermandi

2007, 265). Antonio’s comments demonstrate that in Regina witnessing serves to create a dialogue between victim and empathetic listener that allows for compassion and mutual understanding.

142

Bekelech thanks Antonio “per la vostra amicizia. Mi fa sentire viva. Nei due anni che ho passato con i signori Mandrioli, mi sono sentita come un’invisibile. Una persona senza passato

(…). Proveniente da un paese senza storia” (Ghermandi 2007, 265). Antonio’s genuine interest in Bekelech contrasts with the Mandrioli’s “whitewashing of the colonial past” (Triulzi 2006,

430). The Mandriolis’ refusal to witness her past proved detrimental to Bekelech and highlights the ontological aspect of witnessing. Brison confirms that “to the extent that bearing witness re-establishes the survivor’s identity, the empathetic other is essential to the remaking of the self” (1999, 46). Antonio provides Bekelech with the emotional support necessary for her to tell her story and reconstitute her identity. As their friendship progresses the two delve further into each other’s respective pasts. Bekelech recalls that “del suo tempo in Etiopia mi disse ogni cosa (…). Antonio, come un cipolla, si tolse strato dopo strato, arrivando al cuore morbido di quel suo incredibile legame con la nostra terra” (Ghermandi 2007, 274-275). The ongoing process of witnessing precipitates the renegotiation of traumatic memory. Eventually, it becomes apparent to Bekelech that, despite his fondness for her and Ethiopia, Antonio is still gripped by nostalgia for Italy’s imperial past. After many conversations “c’era un argomento che [Antonio] non voleva mai toccare. Quando gli chiedevo della nostra resistenza, dei nostri arbegnà. Allora il mal d’Etiopia passava. Di colpo diventava un vero patriota italiano”

(Ghermandi 2007, 275). Bekelech is astounded by Antonio’s latent yearning for the “national glory and prestige” (Triulzi 2006, 435) of yesteryear and questions “come poteva ancora desiderare che il nostro paese fosse nelle mani dell’Italia?” (Ghermandi 2007, 275).

However, after his exposure to the trauma of Bekelech, Antonio, as an empathetic listener, begins to reconsider his time in Ethiopia. Through witnessing he has been made to “participate in the desires, struggles, and sufferings of the other” (Silverman 1996, 185). Kaja Silverman refers to this as heteropathic memory, which describes the assimilation of others’ memories

143

into one’s own psyche without appropriating or confusing them with one’s own. She describes heteropathic memory as a form of “identification that does not interiorize the other within the self but that goes out of one’s self and out of one’s own cultural norms in order to align oneself, through displacement, with another (…) [it is] the ability to say, ‘it could have been me, it was me, also and at the same time ‘but it was not me’” (1996, 9). Witnessing allows for this form of heteropathic memory to emerge. In the case of Antonio, it allows his own memories to be imbued with newfound meaning. When Bekelech decides to leave Bologna to return home, she asks if Antonio will visit her, to which he replies: “Non vengo perché non riuscirei a guardare in faccia nessuno. In tutti questi anni, riflettendo su tante cose (…) ha iniziato a sorgere in me una grande vergogna. Bekelech, io mi vergogno. Mi vergogno di ciò che il mio paese ha fatto al vostro” (Ghermandi 2007, 277). Witnessing produces guilt and shame on the part of Antonio.

However, these emotions are not entirely counterproductive. Instead, they challenge Antonio’s congealed vision of Italy’s imperial past (Manzin 2011, 120), leading to the renegotiation of memory. By the time that Bekelech takes her memories back inside herself, both characters have been irrevocably changed through their encounter. Bekelech has begun to quell the ghosts from her past. She has found an outlet in Antonio to articulate and externalise her traumatic memory and convert it into narrative form through witnessing. Meanwhile, Antonio has learnt to incorporate the suffering of others into his memories of Italy’s colonial past in Ethiopia.

Inner murmurings: Mahlet’s recovery and the birth of a cantora

So far my analysis has focused on the witnessing and renegotiation of a traumatic memory at the level of the narrative in Regina. It is now time to investigate witnessing at the level of narrative and structure, “that is, the specific forms the telling of these events takes” (Kacandes

1999, 56). It should be remembered that Bekelech is narrating her encounter with Antonio to the protagonist. Her memories, which have already evolved through their retelling to him, are then relayed to Mahlet. This illustrates the multiple reiterations of the same memory in the text.

144

Every time these memories are witnessed by a listener they gather more connotations and become a new recollection of the past. At the level of the text, Gregoria Manzin highlights that the protagonist “works as a literary device to interrogate the colonial paradigm (…) [her] journey allowed the readers to gain inside-access to the history and culture of Ethiopia” (2011,

115). Mahlet acts as the empathetic listener who enables the retelling of traumatic memory to occur in contemporary Ethiopia. Unbeknown to Mahlet, she has been marked as a cantora by the late elder Yacob. An ensemble of characters recognises that she will act as their representative, bringing their memories “nel paese degli italiani, per non dare loro la possibilità di scordare” (Ghermandi 2007, 67). Characters identify Mahlet’s connection to contemporary

Italy due to the clothes that she is wearing. One character, an elderly bishop, remarks “Figliola sarai di Debre Zeit ma i tuoi vestiti sanno di forestiero (…). Ci sono negozi con abiti europei anche in Etiopia, ma voi che vivete all’estero avete un modo di indossarli che vi contraddistingue” (Ghermandi 2007, 153). Bekelech too identifies Mahlet as a cantora from her attire, asking “‘da dove vieni?’, insistette. ‘Dall’Italia’, risposi. ‘Questo lo sapevo già.

Volevo sapere da quale città dell’Italia’. ‘Bologna’, risposi in modo secco. Lei esultò.

‘Bologna? (…) Pensa che combinazione. Io ho vissuto a Bologna oltre vent’anni” (Ghermandi

2007, 240). Listening to the harrowing memories of those who suffered either directly or indirectly from colonisation causes Mahlet considerable distress and she is a reluctant witness.

When urged by another elder Abba Chereka to collate the stories of colonisation she has listened to an exasperated Mahelt erupts in anger, “Ancora quella fissazione sull’usare le storie del tempo degli italiani. Questa volta mi sarei proprio arrabbiata. ‘Sentite, io non scrivo proprio nulla’” (Ghermandi 2007, 292). Mahlet is in a period of deep introspection after the death of

Yacob. She believes that the accounts of colonialism are a distraction from her task of grieving.

145

Like Mahlet, not all characters exposed to traumatic memory automatically take up the mantle of being an empathetic listener. The listener faces the daunting task of providing the support and emotional resilience necessary for victims to recall their trauma. Unlike the victim who is striken by the symptoms of unresolved trauma and unable to cope, the listener possesses the existential fortitude to confront the victim’s terrifying past. In becoming a co-owner of traumatic memory, the listener is bound to ostensibly relive trauma with the victim. Laub observes that “the listener to trauma comes to be a participant and a co-owner of the traumatic event; through his very listening, he comes to partially experience trauma in himself” (2013,

57). The listener is compelled to partake in the “struggle of the victim with the memories and residues of his or her traumatic past. The listener has to feel the victim’s victories, defeats and silences, know them from within” (Laub 2013, 58). While witnessing inspires empathetic identification in the listeners, the listeners do not forfeit their own subjectivity in the process.

Laub makes it abundantly clear that “the listener (…) is also a separate human being and will experience hazards and struggles of his own (…). While overlapping, to a degree, he nonetheless does not become the victim - he preserves his own separate place, position and perspective; a battleground for forces raging in himself” (2013, 58). Michael Levine insists that the listener is not a “kind of alter ego” (2005, 8) of the victim. The victims are not retelling their testimony to an individual identical to themselves who necessarily shares the same cultural background and values.

Once the listener embarks on this journey into the victim’s past, there is in effect no turning back. To abandon the testimonial process and put an abrupt end to witnessing is to consign the victim to a painful fate of reliving trauma alone. Laub asserts that witnessing is a process “of re-externalizating the event (…). This re-externalization of the event can occur and take effect only when one can articulate and transmit the story, literally transfer it to another outside

146

oneself and take it back again, inside” (2013, 69). This process of being immersed in the traumatic memories of the victim is a necessary occurrence for witnessing to take place.

According to Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer, ‘true listening’, as they term it, requires listeners to experience the “emotional affective embodied truth” (2010, 402), of the testimony they are exposed to. They must, without forgoing their own identity, come to understand on a visceral level the utter fear and trepidation experienced by the victim at the time of trauma. As

Hirsch and Spitzer contend, “the listener must (…) allow the testimony to move, haunt and endanger her; she must allow it to inhabit her, without appropriating or owning it” (2010, 402).

It is only by immersing themselves in testimony that listeners can convince victims that they are truly “being heard” (Hirsch & Spitzer 2010, 402), allowing victims to come to face the horror they have endured.

The listener plays a fundamental role in reconstituting trauma into narrative form, helping the victim to piece the fragments of traumatic memory into a cohesive, chronological account of the past. Witnessing is not identical to anamnesis, a “process by which the individual recalls past events and feelings associated with them” (Doctor, Kahn & Adamec 2008, 41). The victims are not able to independently recover a memory of their traumatic past. If they could do so then the role of the listener would be redundant. The listener is not the receptacle of a fully formed testimony waiting to be told. As Felman and Laub observe “knowledge in the testimony is (…) not simply a factual given that is reproduced and replicated by the testifier, but a genuine advent, an event in its own right” (2013, 62). The listener does not only create the conditions for testimony to occur. The listener participates in the enactment and renegotiation of traumatic memory. Levine insists that “what is ‘reconstituted’ in the testimonial alliance (…) [is] something which was never exactly ‘there’ in the first place”

(2006, 9). Testimony arises out of the dialogic space that opens up between the listener and the

147

victim through witnessing, a process that I refer to as renegotiation. During this process, the listener plays a “generative role” (Dean-Cox 2013, 4) in the formation of the victim’s testimony. According to Felman and Laub, the act of witnessing is a “genuine advent” (2013,

62) between the trauma victim and the listener. The victim derives new meaning from having their testimony heard.

Returning to Ghermandi’s novel, Bekelech knows that Mahlet has been ordained a cantora by the deceased elder. Like other members of the community, she realises that Mahlet is also traumatised and that until she can remember her promise to Yacob she will continue to suffer.

For this reason, she confides her story to Mahlet, hoping to jog the protagonist’s memories.

She explains that when she left Bologna Antonio was suffering from the mal d’Africa – that is a yearning to return to Ethiopia: “Ho conosciuto un signore che ne è malato. Ha oltre novant’anni, è ancora vivo, ma vivo a metà. Ha vissuto qui durante l’occupazione italiana e quando è tornato in Italia si è accorto di aver lasciato metà del suo cuore da noi” (Ghermandi

2007, 240). The example of Antonio demonstrates that the trauma of colonialism lingers in the

“hidden remembrances still floating in Italian houses and consciences” (Triulzi 2006, 434).

Bekelech hopes that she can inspire Mahlet to write down memories in her journal, which will in turn elicit witnessing from an Italian readership.

While Mahlet functions as a literary device to allow witnessing to occur on the level of the text, she is also representative of a younger generation of Ethiopians who lived through the trauma of the Derg dictatorship. Similarly to Antonio, Mahlet is not simply the passive repository of

Bekelech’s testimony. She has her own painful story, which resurfaces through witnessing. By acting as an empathetic listener to Bekelech and other trauma victims, Mahlet begins to unlock her own repressed memories from childhood and overcome her inner grief. Mahlet is still

148

burdened by Yacob’s death when she meets Bekelech. Rather than confronting the trauma of his death, the protagonist suppressed it, recalling:

Da quando era morto il vecchio Yacob io non riuscivo più a pregare (…). Ci avevo provato, ma ogni volta un’onda di dolore insostenibile si era sollevata, pronta a travolgermi. Presto avevo rinunciato, e per lenire il dolore avevo trovato un’unica alternativa: soffocarlo il più possibile. Così, credo, si era generato quello strano brusio interiore (Ghermandi 2007, 147).

The “brusio interiore” (Ghermandi 2007, 147), or inner murmurings refer to the repressed memory of the promise that Mahlet made to Yacob. In chapter two I explained that Mahlet vowed to collect the memories of colonisation as a small girl. Unfortunately, as she grew up, she sidelined the promise she made to Yacob because of the more immediate threat of violence under the Derg. When the elder dies, Mahlet is thrown into inner turmoil. Mahlet’s response to the elder’s death is magnified by the legacy of intergenerational trauma. Mahlet’s torment is a manifestation of cultural bereavement, a bereavement that resulted from the loss of cultural values and self-identity the protagonist incurred after years of systematic oppression under the

Derg and being isolated from her community in Italy. The act of witnessing sparks the recollection of traumatic memory. Initially, Mahlet is overwhelmed by the trauma she has been exposed to since returning from Bologna. The protagonist narrates: “Ero frastornata (…). Le storie ascoltate in quei cinque giorni si annondavano, accavallavano, mescolavano come l’acqua sulla cresta dell’onda, mi sbattevano qua e là togliendomi stabilità” (Ghermandi 2007,

279). Gradually, witnessing reignites her childhood memories. After meeting Bekelech, Mahlet ruminates over the testimonies she has listened to while caressing the journal that Yacob bequeathed her. This prompts her to recall her promise and to recognise the link between the stories she has been unintentionally collecting and her own. While the journal acts as a mnemonic device, Mahlet’s own testimony only materialises because of her role as an empathetic listener. The memories she has been exposed to prompt her to recall her own trauma. Mahlet describes the sensation of having her repressed memory slowly emerge through

149

witnessing: “Tutte quelle storie (…) mi riempi[ono] (…) di una forte pressione, come se stessi per esplodere” (Ghermandi 2007, 284). The memory of her promise to Yacob finally bursts into Mahlet’s consciousness in the penultimate chapter of the book. She now realises that her vocation as a cantora is to bind the memories she witnessed together into a cohesive narrative, as illustrated in the following quote: “La mente, satura di immagini, ne eruttava di continuo, sconesse tra loro, che si sbiadivano, rimescolavano e riemergevano di colpo. Nitide e tangibili”

(Ghermandi 2007, 279). She now views the memories she has witnessed as inextricably linked to her own life. By acting as an empathetic listener, Mahlet is able to recuperate part of her cultural identity that was effaced growing up under the Derg. Through witnessing, her story and the story of her generation begins to surface.

‘Una repubblica senza memoria’: Isabella’s quest for memory and identity

The story of Bekelech resembles that of the protagonist of Timira, Isabella. Both women are trauma victims who seek to have their testimonies heard and recognised by an empathetic listener in order to have their identity affirmed and begin to find closure. Throughout the text,

Isabella is on a crusade to have her brother Giorgio’s life as a partigiano remembered in contemporary Italy, proclaiming: “Mio fratello non è morto per Gesù Cristo, ma per questa

Repubblica senza memoria” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 423). Isabella’s need to commemorate Giorgio is a means of reaffirming her own identity as a trauma victim. At the level of the narrative, the protagonist regularly encounters resistance from Italian characters in the process of witnessing. As with Bekelech, having her testimony rebuked and discredited undermines Isabella’s identity, demonstrating that testimony and identity are intrinsically linked in these two works. However, there is an added layer of complexity in Timira. It is

Isabella’s identity, as an Italo-Somali, that prevents her testimony from being validated in the first place. The protagonist laments: “Tu sei profuga e profughi sono pure i tuoi ricordi, senza dove, spaesati, come le bestie del vecchio mondo nell’Arca di Noè, scampate al diluvio,

150

promesse al futuro” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 156). Isabella’s skin colour causes the recipients of her testimony to doubt her memories. An example of this is the difficulty Isabella has narrating memories of Giorgio to a group of locals in the region of Val di Fiemme in

Northern Italy.

While living in Bologna, Isabella attempts to convince authorities of her entitlement to assistance from the Italian state. In the meantime, she takes the opportunity to exorcise some of the demons from her troubled youth. She travels to Val di Fiemme to memorialise Giorgio at the place of his burial – the small town of Stramentizzo. When the protagonist is unable to find the gravesite, she makes enquires as to its precise location in a local bar. She discovers that her brother’s grave has been flooded by a manmade lake constructed in 1956 shortly after the Second World War (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 152). The protagonist is distraught at this revelation. Isabella never truly came to terms with the death of her brother. She still recalls the trauma of irreconcilable loss when she first received news of Giorgio’s murder in 1945:

La notizia arrivò una mattina di giugno (…) Giorgio è morto (…). Caio [l’amico di Giorgio] si affrettò a spiegarmi come Giorgio fosse arrivato lassú, ma la mia testa era già da un’altra parte, a contemplare la solitudine che mi si spalancava dinanzi (…). Per la prima volta nella mia vita, vi scorgevo incrollabili certezze. Non avrei più riabbracciato mio fratello, non avrei mai colmato la distanza che ci separava, non sarei tornata in Somalia con lui, a trovare nostra madre. Ero rimasta l’unica anomalia della famiglia (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 140-141).

The above quote illustrates that Isabella is not simply grieving the death of a sibling. The protagonist is similar to Majid who suffers immensely after the death of Famey in Oltre

Babilonia. Like Majid, in Oltre Babilonia, Isabella looses not only a family member but also a fellow trauma victim in Giorgio. For Isabella, Giorgio was the only other person who experienced the trauma of maternal and cultural loss. He too was taken away from their biological mother Aschirò and their homeland Somalia to be raised in Italy with Isabella. The protagonist recalls the trauma of growing up in fascist Rome together with her brother. She and

151

Giorgio were treated as exotic trophies from the colonies. Isabella recollects: “Il razzismo che ho conosciuto da ragazza era molto diverso da quello di oggi. La gente era più curiosa che ostile (…). Negli anni Trenta, molti vedevano in me l’icona dell’avventura coloniale e mi vezzeggiavano come una bertuccia ammaestrata. Erano entusiasti di quella ‘bella abissina’ che parlava italiano” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 169). When Giorgio died, Isabella felt truly alone in the world, bereft of another individual who could understand her pain.

Isabella does eventually travel back to Somalia to fulfil Giorgio’s dream of being reunited with their birthmother Aschirò. Sadly, Isabella’s attempts to quell the sorrow of her brother’s death are thwarted. Aschirò is revealed to be a ragged, insensitive woman, rendered unfeeling from her own trauma – that of undergoing sexual violence at the hands of Giuseppe and having her children taken away from her. The protagonist is unable to regain a connection to the Somali cultural identity she and Giorgio lacked growing up without their mother. Furthermore, while living in Mogadishu, she suffers the trauma of dictatorship under Siad Barre and later the brutal civil war that forces her to flee the country. When Isabella finally returns to Italy (in the 1990s) she still carries the unresolved trauma of Giorgio’s death, a trauma compounded by living through authoritarianism and armed conflict. For this reason, she makes the pilgrimage to

Stramentizzo to mourn Giorgio at the place of his death and finally alleviates her suffering.

Unable to find the grave and hence articulate her pain, the protagonist wanders into the local bar. Isabella then begins to narrate the traumatic memory of her brother’s death to the local customers: “Mio fratello è morto qui, nel maggio del’45, in uno scontro con le SS, e a me piacerebbe lasciare un fiore dove l’hanno ammazzato” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 151-

152). To her consternation, Isabella is informed that her brother’s grave has disappeared under the lake and many of the locals doubt her story. They refuse to assume the role of empathetic

152

listeners and enable her testimony to be narrated and listened to. As highlighted earlier, witnessing is complicated by Isabella’s identity as an Italo-Somali. The protagonist’s version of the past is called into question because of the colour of her skin. One customer condescendingly asks if “te sei propri sicura che è stato qua da noi? Non è che t’imbrogli? Qua nel maggio del’45, altro che s’ciopetade: i tedeschi han fat un sémpio, quasi trenta persone, ma era tutta gente del paese” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 152). The protagonist realises the existential threat posed by the incredulity of the locals. She risks the annihilation of her brother’s memory on a physical level (through the flooding of the gravesite), and on an ontological level (through the locals’ refusal to witness her story). If the protagonist fails to have her testimony heard and believed she cannot remake her subjectivity. Laub and Felman observe that this “is perhaps the true meaning of annihilation, for when one’s history is abolished, one’s identity ceases to exist as well” (2013, 82). By repudiating her memories of

Giorgio, the customers of the bar prevent Isabella from reconstituting her identity.

Isabella therefore obstinately continues, “[Giorgio] ha fatto il partigiano a Roma, (…) poi dalle parti di Biella, poi la guerra era finita e poteva tornarsene a casa. Invece è venuto in questa valle, lo hanno ammazzato” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 154). In spite of her conviction,

Isabella continues to face opposition from locals. She experiences the worst possible outcome for a trauma victim, that of having her testimony undermined. While the local customers confirm that there was a skirmish between resistance fighters and Nazi troops at Stramentizzo, they remain sceptical of Isabella’s memories. Another customer remarks “Gh’era anca di forestòn: un par di tedeschi imboscati, un russo, uno slavo (…) ma un négro? Te l’avevi mai sentito? (…) Tò fradel cos’era, un ascari? (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 152). The customers do eventually acknowledge Italy’s colonial past by surmising that Giorgio was an ascari – that is a colonial soldier serving in the Italian army. However, they refuse to accept the existence

153

of a black resistance fighter. The protagonist corrects them in the hope of being believed, “mio fratello non era un soldato, era un partigiano” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 152). For

Isabella, there is more at stake than simply having her brother’s memory honoured. She must have her audience, the customers of the local bar, listen and recognise the entirety of her testimony. Felman and Laub emphasize that it is vital for trauma victims to have their testimony fully listened to and accepted, affirming “for the testimonial process to take place, there needs to be a bonding, the intimate and total presence of another – in the position of the one who hears” (2013, 70). The customers do not provide Isabella with the undivided attention trauma victims require to have testimony truly heard. Instead, they exhibit selective witnessing by only accepting certain aspects of her testimony – that Giorgio did in fact fight at Stramentizzo while rejecting other aspects – namely his Italian identity.

When Isabella insists on her brother being Italian, the customers become increasingly antagonistic and continue to disavow her memories. Finally, an exasperated local curtly asks

Isabella: “Cosa vuole, son storie vecchie, ormai lo sanno tutti (…) Ragionarne ancora non serve a niente” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 155). It is obvious from this remark that Isabella’s testimony makes the customers unwilling to engage with her. The locals’ discomfort over

Isabella’s memories indicates that “colonial memory breaks out occasionally in Italy, following the paths of belonging or exclusion (...). Like a well-functioning engine that has been put into neutral, the racist system of perception can be started at any time and, once in gear, can be pushed to any speed” (Triulzi 2006, 434). When Isabella jeopardises their conception of national identity by maintaining that Giorgio was Italian, the locals begin to actively discriminate against her. They transition from being condescending to being outright aggressive towards her. The customer evoke colonial memory to re-establish a long standing racial hierarchy that places whiteness at the centre of Italian national identity (Greene 2012,

154

96). They use this colonial hierarchy to belittle the protagonist and exclude her testimony from their version of the past.

In a last-ditch attempt to have her testimony witnessed before leaving the bar, Isabella pulls out a bag of paraphernalia including a photo of Giorgio with another resistance fighter and a certificate for the Gold Medal of Italy he was awarded posthumously (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed

2012, 156). These documents spark the interest of the barista Carlo and engender the act of witnessing. Carlo asks if “quella foto di suo fratello. Non è che me la può lasciare? (…) Penso che di sicuro qualcuno del paese deve averlo notato, suo fratello, perché qua non è come in altri luoghi, che erano i negro-americani, qua eran tutti bianchi, e uno così, se lo vedevi, ti rimaneva stampato in testa” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 155). Unlike other locals, Carlo begins to assume the role of the empathetic listener. As a dialogic space opens up between

Isabella and Carlo through witnessing, there remains one point of contention. Again, it is

Giorgio’s Italian identity. “Il barista si allarga il foglio tra le mani (…). Qui non c’è miga scritto ch’era négro, che veniva dall’Africa” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 156). A desperate

Isabella clarifies yet again that Giorgio came from “Roma, non dalla Somalia. Siamo nati in

Somalia poi mio padre ci ha fatto crescere a Roma (…). Mio fratello era italiano, chi si ne frega se aveva la pelle azzurra o a pallini blu” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 156). Finally, in the presence of the photo and certificate Carlo accepts her story allowing for the renegotiation of traumatic memory. I further discuss the role that these objects play in the act of witnessing in the following chapter.

The barista moves past his initial prejudice towards Giorgio, unlike the other locals who insist that “era tutta gente del paese” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 152) who fought and died to liberate Stramentizzo from Nazi troops. As an empathetic listener, Carlo begins to transcend

155

his “own cultural norms” (Silverman 1996, 9), and incorporate Isabella’s memories into his version of the past. The act of witnessing prompts Carlo to recall another massacre committed by Nazi troops in a neighbouring province. Rather than eliding Giorgio from his recollection of the massacre, Carlo admits to Isabella: “Secondo me suo fratello e gli altri facevano bene a tener d’occhio i tedeschi. La stessa ghenga che ha fatto lo scempio qua da noi, ne ha fatto anche un altro in provincia di Belluno, con decine di morti, e lí non c’era di mezzo nessun partigiano”

(Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 155). The renegotiation of traumatic memory leads to a re- evaluation of Italian cultural identity on the part of Carlo. The barista is confronted by his own bigotry towards Isabella as a black Italian. Initially, Carlo sided with the other locals and rejected Isabella’s memories because of her Italo-Somali identity. Through the act of witnessing Carlo learns to participate in the struggles, “defeats and silences” (Felman & Laub

2013, 58) of the victim. Without forfeiting his own subjectivity or appropriating Isabella’s experience, Carlo is able to comprehend Isabella’s trauma. This allows him to realise the immense psychological damage the local customers are inflicting on the protagonist by denying her testimony.

As an empathetic listener, Carlo becomes “the guardian” (Felman & Laub 2013, 58) of the protagonist’s testimony. The barista comes to bear responsibility for Isabella’s traumatic memories. This is indicated through his insistence on keeping the photo of Giorgio at the bar in the hope of eliciting memories of the protagonist’s brother from his customers: “Casomai se taco su il ritratto vesin a la cassa, me riesce de catar qualcheduno che ci ha parlato, che se lo sovien, che può darle qualche nova” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 155). Isabella’s memories have affected Carlo so deeply that he feels compelled to continue searching for information about Giorgio on her behalf. Months after their conversation, Antar’s partner Celeste informs

Isabella ““ci sono varie telefonate per te (...). Il signor Carlo, barista in Val di Fiemme (...), ti

156

saluta e dice che di quella cosa che sai tu non ha ancora notizie” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed

2012, 283). The phone call demonstrates the potential of witnessing. By acting as a guardian of Isabella’s testimony Carlo becomes an agent for the transmission and renegotiation of traumatic memory in the community of Val di Fiemme on Isabella’s behalf.

Co-authorship as witnessing in Timira

Witnessing has so far been explored at the level of the narrative in Timira. Witnessing also occurs at the level of structure. As demonstrated in the following paragraphs, the collaborative writing process employed by Wu Ming 2 and Mohamed equates to another form of witnessing.

The co-authors reveal the collaborative writing process over the course of the text. Firstly, in the letters written to Isabella by co-author Wu Ming 2 that are interspersed throughout the narrative, and secondly through the Titoli di coda or credits that feature at the end of the book.

Wu Ming 2 and Mohamed inform the reader: “Abbiamo deciso di mettere a nudo le collaborazioni (spesso involontarie) che ci hanno permesso di modellare e arricchire le memorie di Isabella” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 504). They go on to explain that the text’s inception began before Isabella’s death in 2010. Initially, Wu Ming 2 acted as an empathetic listener to Isabella, who as a trauma victim shared her testimony during their interviews together. Wu Ming 2 admits that when he first interviewed Isabella “volevo sentirmi libero di intrecciare i tuoi ricordi in una trama, cucendoli assieme col filo del dubbio (...). Ecco perché ti ho proposto di riversare la tua vita nel registratore e di lasciare a me il compito di tradurre quei suoni su carta, per sottoporteli a trasformazione avvenuta” (Wu Ming 2 &

Mohamed 2012, 344). In hindsight, the co-author came to realise that he was in danger of obscuring Isabella’s role as the “chronicler” (Jilovsky 2012, 13) of her own traumatic testimony. Rather than acting as “a participant and a co-owner of the traumatic event” (Laub

157

2013, 57), Wu Ming 2 risked speaking on behalf of Isabella the trauma victim, a practice that he likens to ventriloquism, as seen in the following quote:

Se avessimo fatto a modo mio, dando ascolto alle mie fisime e alle mie paure, oggi avremmo sulla pagina tre figurine da talk show: 1) la vecchia nonnina, buona solo per rammentare e rammendare il passato; 2) la donna che porta una testimonianza di vita e l’uomo esperto che la interpreta; 3) l’emarginato di pelle scura che può raccontare la sua storia solo indossando il costume del ‘povero negro’, per poi farsi prestare la voce da un ventriloquo di pelle bianca (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 344). The relationship between Isabella and Wu Ming 2 described above resembles the asymmetrical relationship between a trauma victim and an empathetic listener warned against by trauma studies scholar Stephanie Craps. Craps cautions against a model of witnessing predicated on an unequal power dynamic between the victim and the listener. She asserts that in this unequal relationship “the respective subject positions into which the (...) [victim and listener] are interpellated are those of a passive, inarticulate victim on the one hand and a knowledgeable expert on the other” (2012, 41-42). As an established author, Wu Ming 2 originally assumed the role of the expert and exerted his influence over Isabella by attempting to craft her testimony into a novel. He likens his approach to Isabella to that of a painter and his subject:

“Se tu posi per un pittore, lui è l’artista e tu sei la modella, e anche se il dipinto rappresenta il tuo corpo, siamo abituati a vederci il lavoro del pittore, mentre il tuo non lo riconosciamo nemmeno” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 159). The quote above illustrates that Wu Ming 2 effectively would have muted Isabella by writing on her behalf. By attempting to transcribe her memories, Wu Ming 2 would have transformed Isabella into a biographical subject, depriving her of agency as the chronicler of her own testimony.

Before Wu Ming 2 had the opportunity to begin transcribing Isabella’s memories, her son Antar intervened in the writing process. Antar’s objection to Wu Ming 2’s transcription avoided the asymmetrical relationship described by Craps. Letters penned by the co-author Wu Ming 2 to

158

the real-life Isabella Marincola, who was already deceased when they were written, are scattered throughout the text. In one of his letters Wu Ming 2 admits his relief that Antar interfered with the writing process: “Per fortuna Antar ti ha aiutato a dire no, o si fa tutto insieme o non si fa, cinquanta e cinquanta, dividiamo a metà la scrittura e le fatiche, le lodi e gli insuccessi” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 344). By collaborating with Wu Ming 2, Antar assumed the role of both an author and a trauma victim. As seen in the previous chapter, Antar was exposed to intergenerational trauma inherited from his mother. This congenital trauma was aggravated by the violence, persecution and hardship he suffered living under Barre’s dictatorship before escaping to Bologna. Isabella – the character – attests: “Antar (...) è cresciuto ai tempi di un dittatore (...), è assuefatto all’arrangiarsi, a ringraziare il cielo quando un pezzo di carne gli cade nel piatto e ad affrontare i digiuni con un’alzata di spalle” (Wu Ming

2 & Mohamed 2012, 459). Antar has an insight into Isabella’s pain as he suffers from a trauma strictly linked to that which afflicted his mother. He is therefore uniquely qualified to continue the process of witnessing on his mother’s behalf, and the text was then co-authored drawing on Isabella’s testimony, tape recorded by Wu Ming 2, along with Isabella’s diaries and other archival material (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 506). Wu Ming 2 observes the arduous process of developing an egalitarian model for writing: “Abbiamo trascorso un anno a cercare la ricetta per un racconto comune: uno sbobina, l’altro corregge, uno ricerca, l’altro ricorda, uno inventa, l’altro contesta, uno legge, l’altro interrompe, uno scrive, l’altro riscrive” (Wu

Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 346). The model that the co-authors finally settled on, outlined above, is comparable to the renegotiation of traumatic memory engendered by the act of witnessing. Both co-authors are active in the renegotiation. Antar is able to finish narrating his deceased mother’s memories on her behalf. By continuing the act of witnessing with Wu Ming

2 he ensures that her traumatic memories, along with his own, are listened to and validated by an empathetic listener. Meanwhile, Wu Ming 2 learnt to relinquish his control over Isabella’s

159

testimony in order become “a participant and a co-owner of the traumatic event” (Laub 2013,

57). The renegotiation of traumatic memory alerted Wu Ming 2 to his initial blunder in speaking on behalf of Isabella. Wu Ming 2 recognised that to begin with he was in effect

‘colonising’ Isabella’s memories. The co-author evinces: “Lastricando di buone intenzioni la via dell’inferno, convinto di fare il bene e l’interesse di entrambi, sono venuto alle tue coste come un europeo d’altri tempi, per trasformare le tue terre nella mia colonia” (Wu Ming 2 &

Mohamed 2012, 344). The act of witnessing enacted by Antar and Wu Ming 2 is a means of decolonising the writing process. It avoids repeating an earlier model of co-authorship typical of Italian postcolonial texts in which “the white scripteur stands beside or behind the black narrator to authorize and certify the narrative” (Lombardi-Diop 2005, 225). Cristina Lombardi-

Diop observes that:

Postcolonial/migrant texts (…) at the beginning of the 1990s were written with the help of a co-author, an Italian journalist, intellectual, or cultural mediator (…). The method employed is similar to the one used in Latin America for the recording of ‘testimonial’ autobiographies: the immigrant told the story to an Italian ‘scribe’, who later transcribed the recorded interviews into standard Italian (2005, 221).

The model outlined by Lombardi-Diop is identical to Wu Ming 2’s initial method of recording and transcribing Isabella’s memories. Lombardi-Diop identifies this model as problematic as it can “result in the denial of authorial agency” (2005, 217), on the part of those testifying about their experience. In Timira, the co-authors circumvent this model by means of witnessing. Wu

Ming 2 was initially reluctant to afford Antar the role of co-author, admitting “ho cominiciato a chiedermi se sia possibile, per uno che di mestiere scrive e racconta storie, porgere la tastiera a chi non l’ha mai usata prima e aiutarlo a mettere in romanzo la sua vita” (Wu Ming 2 &

Mohamed 2012, 345). Through the act of witnessing he became aware of his own “place, position and perspective” (Laub 2013, 58) as an empathetic listener. The renegotiation of traumatic memory enabled Wu Ming 2 to view the collaborative writing process from the

160

perspective of Isabella and Antar and realise that he was initially guilty of denying them the authorial agency they deserved.

A cassette of broken dreams: witnessing in Oltre Babilonia

At the level of the story, Oltre Babilonia is the only text in which witnessing does not occur contemporaneously. That is, it does not take place at a face-to-face level between characters.

Instead, the protagonists use different mediums to communicate their testimony. Maryam and

Elias record their traumatic memories on cassettes for their daughter Zuhra, and Miranda writes letters explaining her tortured past to her daughter Mar. The process of witnessing enabled through cassettes and letters allows characters to mend broken relationships with each other and begin to heal a family that has been marred by tragedy. An example of this is the act of witnessing that takes place between Maryam – the trauma victim, and her daughter Zuhra – the empathetic listener.

As discussed in chapter three, Maryam suffers a succession of traumas beginning with the death of her parents in Somalia under the Italian colonial regime. Maryam never knew her father who was conscripted by the colonial regime to fight Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia. Her father “era morto (…) sul fronte Sud di Graziani. (…) [Lei] non sapeva nulla di lui, tranne che (...) era andato a conquistare l’impero per gli italiani” (Scego 2008, 107-108). After her father’s death

Maryam’s mother was overwhelmed by grief. Trauma desiccates Maryam’s mother, slowly leeching the life out of her: “Alla mamma di Maryam si erano seccati in corpo tutti i liquidi di donna. Prima sparì il latte materno, poi il sangue mestruale e a poco poco senza che nessuno se ne rendesse ben conto, anche tutti i fluidi vitali. Morì di secchezza, la madre di Maryam

Laamane. Prosciugata dal dolore” (Scego 2008, 351). Maryam is orphaned by Italian colonialism and is left to be raised by her extended family. She tries to recover from the death of her parents but trauma permeates the rest of her life.

161

Maryam later married Elias and gave birth to Zuhra. Their family was torn apart by the rise of dictator Siad Barre to power in Somalia. Elias was targeted as an enemy of the regime and forced to migrate to Italy. Maryam decided to follow Elias and leave her country behind.

Maryam fled from Somalia with Zuhra in 1975. As her country descended into totalitarianism, she “sentiva in colpa per non poter aiutare tutti. Erano anni brutti. Il 21 ottobre 1969 era venuto

Barre al potere. Bruciava i culi (...). Maryam si ricordava a memoria tutti i suoi discorsi (…).

Erano parole scritte con il sangue dei somali” (Scego 2008, 103). After migrating to Italy,

Maryam only experienced a temporary reprieve from trauma. Shortly after their reunion in

Rome Elias abandoned Maryam and Zuhra and disappeared back to Africa. Elias followed in the steps of his estranged father Majid, wandering the continent in search of respite from the tragedy that had dominated his life – that of his mother’s death, his abandonment by his father and later his persecution by the Barre regime. Abandoned in Italy, Maryam soon turned to alcohol to dull the pain of exile and solitude. As Maryam slips further into alcoholism and depression she fails to notice Zuhra’s sexual abuse at the hands of the high school janitor, Aldo.

Tragically, “mentre [Maryam] inseguiva ricordi e gin, la figlia marciva lentamente in un collegio. E soffriva le pene di ogni inferno” (Scego 2008, 347). By the time that Maryam realises that her daughter is suffering it is too late. The abuse causes a rift between mother and daughter. Zuhra resents Maryam for failing to protect her and Maryam is unable to forgive herself for her negligence.

The breakdown in Maryam and Zuhra’s relationship precludes the act of witnessing from occurring between mother and daughter. Maryam is reluctant to confide her traumatic past in her daughter as she is still crippled by guilt over Zuhra’s molestation. As seen in the following quote, Zuhra is desperate to listen to her mother but cannot convince Maryam to share her testimony: “Non parliamo tanto io e lei. Non ci riusciamo. E dire che io sono una chiacchierona.

162

Ma con lei non ci riesco. Le leggo il dolore in faccia. Il senso di colpa per avermi lasciato da piccola in quel collegio” (Scego 2008, 81). Maryam’s silence proves detrimental to her daughter. Along with her traumatic memories Maryam also withholds the identity of Zuhra’s father Elias. Zuhra yearns to know more about her estranged father, asking her mother: “Ti è mai piacuto fare l’amore con gli uomini...con papà? Ti divertivi?” (Scego 2008, 56). Zuhra’s impertinent question makes sense given her own history of sexual abuse. Zuhra is robbed of her sexual identity by her abuser at high school. “Un pomeriggio, Aldo aveva una strana faccia, era molto sudato e mi sembrava arrabbiato. Ecco, quel giorno, Aldo s’è preso la vagina (...).

[Oggi] tocco la mia vagina e non sento niente. Al posto della vagina c’è sempre quell’orribile vuoto” (Scego 2008, 286). After her molestation Zuhra is unable to have intimate relationships and feels as though she has lost her womanhood. This is signified by her inability to see the colour red, a colour that Zuhra equates with her sexuality. She is anxious about having her period as everytime “quando [le macchie] le guardo sulle mie mutande vedo solo un punto di grigio” (Scego 2008, 17). Zuhra’s personal crisis is exacerbated by the legacy of intergenerational trauma that runs through her family. Due to the absence of Elias she is reliant on her mother for a connection to her ancestry. Maryam becomes the gatekeeper of Zuhra’s cultural heritage, a role she cannot readily fulfil. Trauma stifles Maryam’s attempts to communicate her past to Zuhra as many of her stories about Elias and Somalia are tinged with sadness and too painful to repeat. Maryam’s silence leaves Zuhra unable to connect to her cultural heritage and she struggles to reconstitue her identity.

Unfortunately, Maryam obstinately refuses to testify to Zuhra. She instead confides in her best friend Howa. Shortly after the death of her mother, Maryam met Howa and the two women became inseparable. Maryam identifies Howa as a new maternal figure and best friend.

Maryam “sentì di aver trovato una nuova mamma: Howa Rosario. Una donna che sapeva anche

163

essere sorella, amica, complice” (Scego 2008, 351). Howa also relocates to Rome to escape the

Barre regime and remains Maryam’s closest confidante for the remainder of her life. When

Howa dies after falling from a tram, Maryam is distraught. Howa had for years acted as an empathetic listener witnessing her traumatic memories. Howa had listened to Maryam’s heart break at losing her parents and leaving behind Somalia for a better life in Italy only to be deserted by her husband. Howa intervened in Zuhra’s sexual abuse by taking her out of school, all the while standing by Maryam as she recovered from alcoholism. Without Howa, Maryam can no longer narrate her trauma. She is left alone in the world having refused to confide her painful memories in anyone else. Maryam remains:

Solo a casa. Alla tv, le solite scemenze (...). In altre circostanze, avrebbe preso il telefono e dato un appuntamento a Howa. Insieme avrebbero parlato dei bei tempi, quando Xamar, Mogadiscio, era fanatica, bella, sensuale (...). Avrebbero parlato anche dei tempi brutti, di quando Siad Barre si era preso il potere e aveva deciso, come un una malefica partita a scacchi, di sacrificare tutti i pedoni, tutti i somali (Scego 2008, 55).

Maryam is pushed to breaking point after Howa’s death. She has barely survived the trauma of her daughter’s molestation and her years of alcoholism. She still requires an empathetic listener. No longer able to unburden her grief to Howa Maryam becomes increasingly desperate. Like Bekelech and Isabella, Maryam exhibits an existential need to have her traumatic memories witnessed. The prospect of having trauma heard by another offers Maryam salvation from reliving her trauma in isolation. Sadly, she realises that “non c’era nessuno a cui volesse telefonare, con cui volesse veramente parlare. Anzi no, qualcuno c’era. Sua figlia.

Zuhra. Ma era difficile raccontare le sue cose a Zuhra. Era difficile spiegare tutti i suoi errori di mamma. Del gin. Della fuga. Di suo padre. Della paura che per anni l’aveva scorticata viva”

(Scego 2008, 55). Out of desperation Maryam devises a plan to narrate her testimony to her daughter without having to face Zuhra in person. She decides to narrate her traumatic memories onto cassette for Zuhra two days after Howa’s burial (Scego 2008, 50). She then contacts her estranged husband Elias and urges him to also narrate his testimony onto cassette.

164

At the beginning of his testimony, Elias explains to Zuhra “è accaduto con una telefonata (...), la voce mi ha detto che mia figlia è una donna ormai (...) la voce mi ha detto che (...) ‘devi raccontare la tua storia, per non perderla, per non perderti’” (Scego 2008, 60-61). Maryam implores Elias to narrate his story to Zuhra. She realises that her daughter has suffered terribly.

Maryam’s silence over her past, including the identity of Elias, has left Zuhra deprived of her family history. Zuhra struggles to forge an identity of her own without any knowledge of her ancestry. Maryam explains to Elias that his daughter “‘è molto bella’ (…) ‘Ma lei, Elias, non lo sa. Per questo devi raccontarle la tua storia, perché la bellezza senza storia è muta” (Scego

2008, 62). Elias agrees to recount his testimony, which also encapsulates the history of his parents Famey and Majid to Zuhra. His memories serve as recompense for abandoning his daughter. Both parents then begin to narrate the tragic story of their lives, and that of their forefathers to their daughter.

Even though Maryam is recording her testimony onto cassette in private the retelling of traumatic memory is still agonising for her. Maryam splutters as she forces herself to narrate her harrowing past beginning with the death of her parents. On the day of Howa’s funeral

Maryam encounters a local vagrant Gor Gor at the Termini train station “declamando le parole del duce, annata '36, quella imperial (…). Questo Maryam lo disse alla figlia nella registrazione. Sottolineò la parola imperiale con un tremito d'indignazione nella voce” (Scego

2008, 107). For Maryam, the vagrant’s recitation of Mussolini’s imperial speech causes retraumatisiation She is forced to listen to the colonial rhetoric that devastated her family shortly before burying her best friend. Maryam cowers in her own living room assailed by ghosts of the past as she forges ahead with her testimony: “Le parole di Gor Gor rimbalzavano boriose sui muri tutt'intorno. A Maryam, accucciata davanti al registratore nel mezzo del salotto

165

di casa sua, quelle parole facevano ancora male” (Scego 2008, 107). Maryam’s visceral reaction to Gor Gor’s speech illustrates that narrating trauma is a painful exercise.

Nevertheless, she persists in her retelling of the past for her daughter’s sake.

The act of witnessing enables Maryam to gain command over her memories by “giving shape and a temporal order to the events recalled” (Brison 1999, 40). By recording her memories onto cassette Maryam is able to translate them into a coherent testimony and explain the tragic events in her life that culminated in her alcoholism and negligence. She weaves her traumatic memories into a narrative, stopping whenever she is too overwhelmed to continue. Maryam recommences her testimony: “L'anno il 1975. La madre iniziò a raccontare alla figlia di quella sua prima partenza da Mogadiscio. Di quando lasciò tutto per seguire il suo uomo, il padre di lei. ‘La gente era venuta a salutarmi e tu eri così piccola, Zuhra mia’, un singhiozzo cominciò a ostruirle la gola. Maryam Laamane si ritrovò a piangere (Scego 2008, 101). At this point,

Maryam begins to choke on her words. The memories of leaving Somalia behind to rejoin Elias become too painful to narrate and she “riavviò la registrazione più volte. Spinse STOP e poi

RECORD e poi di nuovo STOP e poi indietro per risentirsi, avanti per superarsi, e poi di nuovo il pulsante di registrazione” (Scego 2008, 101). The tape recorder allows Maryam to record and rerecord her testimony, listening to it in the process. Maryam gains confidence by hearing her testimony played back. She is galvanised to carry on and remembers her naivety in believing she would one day return to Somalia. Maryam recalls when she departed from

Mogadishu the “tribù venuta a salutarla (…). Nessuno però pensava che quella fuga si sarebbe tramutata in un destino eterno per i somali, in un karma ineluttabile. Nessuno immaginava che dopo vent’anni sarebbe scoppiata una guerra tra fratelli (…) per spartirsi quel potere lordo di sangue che il tirano Barre aveva lasciato” (Scego 2008, 103). This final quote perfectly distils

Maryam’s trauma. When she left Somalia in 1975 in search of a better life with Elias she had

166

no idea that her country would suffer through decades of totalitarianism before being plunged into civil war. A conflict that forced her to remain in Italy, a country she resents due to its colonial past.

The act of witnessing enabled by the tape recorder engenders the renegotiation of traumatic memory, even if it does not happen contemporaneously. Witnessing allows Maryam to assuage the feelings of guilt that prevented her from confiding in Zuhra face-to-face. She finally begins to forgive herself and reconnect with her daughter: “Maryam parlava al suo registratore.

Attraverso di esso abbracciava la figlia Zuhra. Le storie erano il suo amore di madre che lei,

Maryam Laamane, non era riuscita a manifestare” (Scego 2008, 426). By addressing Zuhra on the cassettes Maryam is able to resolve her crisis – that of losing an empathetic listener with the death of Howa. When Maryam concludes her testimony, she is still mourning for the loss of her best friend: “Maryam Laamane premette lo STOP con leggerezza. Frammenti di lei ora erano incisi sul nastro. Il ricordo dell’amica Howa Rosario aveva accompagnato Maryam in quel periodo di ricordi e racconti” (Scego 2008, 429). Despite her grief, Maryam gains the courage to give the tapes to her daughter. She now identifies Zuhra as the empathetic listener who is strong enough to bear witness her testimony: “Ora la donna sentiva di avere la forza sufficiente per poter correre da sola (…) Ora ci sarebbe stata sua figlia Zuhra a illuminare il suo universo” (Scego 2008, 429-430). In the last chapter of the text Maryam is reunited with

Zuhra, who has just returned from holiday in Tunisia where she befriended Miranda and Mar.

Maryam hesitantly broaches the subject of Elias with her daughter: “Una volta, figlia mia, mi hai chiesto se con papà era stato bello (…). Non ti ho saputo rispondere. Non saprei nemmeno dirti bene come sia andata la faccenda tra me e lui, a dir la verità. Però in queste cassette c’è una risposta” (Scego 2008, 451). Zuhra shivers with excitement on hearing that she will finally receive the answer she has been waiting for: “Una risposta? Un tentativo? Sto tremando. Sfioro

167

le cassette con il mio piccolo indice inanellato. ‘C’è papa qui dentro?’ chiedo. ‘Ci siamo noi’ disse Maryam Laamane. Noi…che parola meravigliosa” (Scego 2008, 451). Through witnessing mother and daughter begin to overcome the trauma that has dominated their lives and alienated them from one another.

The final scene of the text depicts Zuhra going to the bathroom to change her underwear because of her period. The protagonist is again anxious to check them due to her inability to see red – the colour stolen from her by Aldo. When Zuhra hesitantly inspects her underwear

“sono sporche. Macchia umida estesa. Sembra una stella. È rossa la sua stella” (Scego 2008,

456). Zuhra’s ability to see red indicates that she has undergone a fundamental transformation that has allowed her to reclaim her sexual identity. Zuhra’s transformation can in part be attributed to her exposure to Maryam’s testimony. It can be assumed that Zuhra has listened to the cassettes as she goes on to describe that she sees “una stella mestruale che brilla solo per lei, infinita (…). La stella si allarga. Una costellazione. Dentro la costellazione, la sua storia di donna. E dentro la sua storia, quella di altre prima di lei e di altre dopo di lei” (Scego 2008,

456). By assuming the role of an empathetic listener Zuhra is able to connect with her ancestry

(the stories that came before her), which she has denied for so many years. Maryam’s memories imbue her identity with new meaning as she is finally exposed to the cultural heritage she lacked growing up.

In summary, this chapter argues that the act of witnessing opens up a dialogic space between the trauma victim – character and the listener – character, allowing memories to take on new associations, a process I refer to as renegotiation. I used the concept of witnessing as a theoretical framework to analyse the selected texts. It examined witnessing at the level of the narrative – that is encounters between traumatised protagonists and those characters who

168

assume the role of empathetic listeners. Chapter four also explored witnessing as textual structure. In Regina witnessing refers to Ghermandi’s use of the protagonist Mahlet as a literary device to enable stories of Italian colonisation to be retold in contemporary Ethiopia. In Timira witnessing is enacted through the collaborative writing process between co-authors Antar

Mohamed and Wu Ming 2. In the next chapter, I shift my anaylsis of witnessing by focussing on the literary devices and stylistic features used by the authors of the selected texts to affect

Italian readers.

169

Chapter 5 - Reading Trauma

Ho letto tanti libri nel corso degli anni. Testimonianze, fiction, ricostruzioni. Ho letto i dettagli scabrosi, i dettagli quotidiani, i dettagli dei dettagli. Ho letto, ho cercato di capire, ho cercato di mettermi nei panni di quella gente, sono impazzita nel tentativo (…). Come si fa a concepire tanto orrore? A entrare in un dolore? (Scego 2008, 244).

In Oltre Babilonia Miranda ponders the limitations of comprehending another’s trauma through reading. The Argentine poet doubts her capacity to experience the anguish of her late brother Ernesto firsthand. Miranda’s self-doubt belies the fact that her writing represents a model for engaging with trauma through literature, which positions her readership as witnesses to the trauma of victims of the military junta in Argentina. While she is unable to recount with any certainty her late brother’s trauma, Miranda can still convey through writing the immense fear and incredible torment her brother and others like him are likely to have felt at the hands of their captors. The aim of this chapter is to examine how the authors of the selected trauma novels engendered a specific kind of reading from an Italian readership, which is commensurate with the act of witnessing enacted by traumatised protagonists and characters who act as their listeners.

In the previous chapter, I introduced Irene Kacande’s contention that witnessing can occur on several levels in trauma novels. I analysed witnessing occurring at both narrative and style levels. I now turn my attention to witnessing at the level of reading. Authors draw on a series of literary devices to convey trauma to readers. These literary devices include directly addressing the reader; ellipsis; anachrony and repetition; a fictional relationship between an author and a reader; and stylistic features like the inclusion of photographs. These literary devices are intended to enable readers “to feel the bewilderment, injury, confusion, dread and conflicts that the trauma victim feels” (Laub 2013, 58). They produce affect in the reader, that is the physiological response triggered by being exposed to depictions of trauma in the narrative. I will provide a theoretical discussion of affect through reading later in the chapter.

170

Trauma novels and testimonial writing

As discussed in the introductory chapter, trauma novels exhibit characteristics of testimonial writing. The trauma novels under consideration in this project make references to the real historical events of Italian colonisation, dictatorship, and civil war in the histories of Somalia and Ethiopia. Despite containing fictionalised accounts of these events in the form of testimonies narrated by traumatised characters, these trauma novels cannot be treated as testimonial writing. As Rosanne Kennedy observes, “in court, testimony is subjected to an adversarial process of cross-examination, which is meant to reveal whether the witness is reliable, and whether there are significant gaps or contradictions in the testimony, which may invalidate it” (2008, 59). As works of fiction, trauma novels are never framed as being verifiable accounts of the past. Readers are not placed in a position to interrogate the validity of the stories they are exposed to in the selected works. In opposition to testimonial writing with its emphasis on proof, trauma novels are characterised by their potential “to open up in that belated witness, which the reader (…) becomes, the imaginative capability of perceiving

(…) what is happening to others” (Felman & Laub 2013, 108). As trauma novels, the selected works are designed to enable their readers to engage in a type of reading that is commensurate with, though not identical to, witnessing. Before proceeding with my discussion of witnessing at the level of reading, I should clarify that reading about trauma and, in the case of Timira, viewing it through a photograph of Giorgio that I discuss in section three, are not synonymous with the act of listening. All three means of witnessing – listening, reading, and viewing – are different ways of experiencing trauma and the distinction between these three layers must be acknowledged. Reading is not a substitute for the act of sitting across from the victim, a practice described by Felman and Laub; or of hearing the tremor in the victim’s voice as they attempt to verbalise what happened to them; or of watching their body tense up as they are assailed by violent memories of the past and viscerally sharing in their sense of dread and anticipation.

171

While the texts cannot guarantee an experience identical to that of listening to trauma, they deploy a variety of literacy devices and stylistic features that attempt to recreate the act of witnessing.

Reading and witnessing in Italian

As part of a programmatic approach to engender the decolonisation of contemporary Italian society, the authors connect the trauma of contemporary Somali and Ethiopian characters, like

Zuhra, Mahlet, and Antar (whose parents escaped authoritarianism and civil war), to the trauma of Italian colonialism that other characters inherited from their forebears like Majid and Famey,

Yacob, and Isabella. The authors have not written in Somali, Amharic or Oromo to engage specifically with the communities that suffered as victims of intergenerational trauma20. They have written in Italian – the language they grew up and are intimately acquainted with. Italian is for the authors a language that may be as much a source of strength as it is of grief and sorrow. By writing in Italian the authors are implicitly addressing Italy, a nation to which they belong and one which is also responsible for the past colonial injustices inflicted on Somalia and Ethiopia. All readers who identify as Italian are encouraged to understand the traumatic histories of the former colonies. As “individuals [Italian readers] become implicated in national shame insofar as they already belong to the nation, insofar as their allegiance has already been given to the nation, and they can be subject to its audiences.” (Ahmed 2014, 111). By writing in Italian, the authors considered in this thesis invite Italian readers to acknowledge the layers of hurt, grief and, sadness that have underscored the colonial and postcolonial histories of

Somalia and Ethiopia. As E. Apfelbaum highlights that witnessing “requires [of the reader], a willingness to follow the teller into a world of radical otherness and to accept the frightening implications it carries for our personal lives and society as a whole” (2001, 3). The depictions

20 Italian has not been adopted as the official language in any of the countries it previously colonised. Even in Eritrea, the country with which Italy had the longest colonial relationship, Italian was soon abandoned in favour of English (Andall & Dunkan 2005, 17).

172

of rape, torture, psychological and sexual abuse contained in the selected trauma novels are so abhorrent that they can be considered as ‘radically other’ to a reader’s conception of normalcy.

As I demonstrate in the following paragraph, the authors of the selected texts deliberately expose readers to trauma to encourage them to reflect on their colonial history.

In a 2009 interview with Daniele Comberiati, Ghermandi reveals that: “Quando ho scritto

Regina di fiori e di perle sono stata spinta anche della rabbia, soprattutto verso quelle persone che continuavano a dirmi: ‘Noi vi abbiamo fatto le strade, vi abbiamo fatto le scuole’ (…). Il colonialismo italiano è stato tremendo, ed è mancato anche un successivo processo di decolonizzazione nella cultura e nella società italiana” (Comberiati 2011, 146). Spurred on by the recalcitrance of certain sections of Italian society towards their colonial past, Ghermandi began to record the real life testimonies of those who lived through imperialism, both from an

Italian and Ethiopian perspective. The author reveals that the story of Bekelech and Antonio discussed in the previous chapter was based on two real life accounts of colonialism she collected while researching her book: “Sono due persone che esistono realmente e che io ho intervistato, l’unica licenza poetica è stata l’unire le loro storie, perché nella realtà non si conoscono” (Comberiati 2011, 149). Ghermandi uses witnessing as a literary device to unite the perspectives of Bekelech and Antonio. By bringing these two distinct viewpoints together in the act of witnessing, Ghermandi entreats an Italian readership to realise that the trauma of colonisation “affected everybody, colonizers and colonized, albeit in different ways” (Clò

2010, 36). Witnessing provides a dialogic space for mutual understanding, empathy and respect to occur. Scego similarly highlights that decolonisation can be achieved “attraverso un rispetto reciproco e un ascolto collettivo delle storie” (Scego & Bianchi 2014, 24). Like Ghermandi,

Scego is concerned that “l’Italia non ha vissuto un processo di defascitizzazione come la

Germania. L’Italia non ha fatto i conti con il suo passato coloniale e con le sue immense colpe.

173

Ha preferito nascondere la testa sotto la sabbia come uno struzzo” (Scego & Bianchi 2014, 22).

Despite not having experienced the trauma of colonisation firsthand, Scego insists she inherited the legacy of pain from her forebears. As the daughter of Somali migrants who fled the Siad

Barre regime, Scego has been exposed to the effects of trauma. In a 2013 interview with postcolonial scholar Simone Brioni, the writer remarked: “Io sento di avere vissuto il colonialismo attraverso i racconti di amici e di parenti. Credo che i somali, anche quelli che arrivano in Italia sui barconi, abbiano più conoscenza storica degli italiani” (2013). Growing up in contemporary Italy – a country partly responsible for the devastation of her parents’ country, the author feels compelled to narrate the violence that was inflicted against her ancestors and expurgate her congenital sorrow: “Io sono figlia del Corno d’Africa e figlia dell’Italia. Se sono nata qui lo devo a questa storia di dolore (…). Non la posso dimenticare

(…). [Faccio parte di] questa storia. Non la voglio dimenticare. Per questo forse, a modo mio, la racconto” (Scego & Bianchi 2014, 25). Oltre Babilonia relies on the concept of witnessing to narrate the legacy of trauma from multiple generational perspectives. Grandparents, parents, and children all participate in the act of witnessing – either narrating or listening to experiences of trauma caused by colonialism, dictatorship and civil war. The act of witnessing allows Scego to track trauma from its inception in colonial Somalia to its apex in contemporary Italy, tracing its symptoms across generations.

Similarly to Scego, co-authors Antar Mohamed and Wu Ming 2 use Isabella’s life story to illustrate the continuity between the colonial past and the postcolonial present. According to

Antar, Isabella’s story serves to challenge Italian readers who view migration as an affront to their national identity: “La nuova realtà multiculturale è una nuova frontiera, è una nuova sfida.

Ma una frontiera e una sfida che già erano presenti nella vita italiana. Giorgio e Isabella sono i primi meticci. L’Italia non ha mai voluto rendersi conto di essere stata meticcia. In questo senso

174

Timira vuole essere una provocazione” (Ricci 2012). Isabella attempts to confide her testimony in anyone who will listen. However, the majority of Italian characters dismiss her because of her meticcia identity. The process of witnessing pushes Italian characters, and by proxy an

Italian readership, to recognise that the protagonist’s predicament is a direct consequence of their country’s imperial ambitions.

Reading trauma

Trauma novels are not written for readers to derive a voyeuristic or aesthetic pleasure from the graphic depictions of violence, torture and sexual and psychological abuse. Nor are these representations intended to traumatise readers. Dominik LaCapra affirms that at no stage should empathetic identification give way to “vicarious victimhood” (2001, 47). Vicarious victimhood refers to the process by which an individual who bears witness to trauma, in person or through reading as this thesis would suggest, “take[s] over the position of the oppressed by shifting the focus of empathetic identification back onto themselves” (Craps 2013, 130).

Instead, trauma novels invite readers to identify specific literary devices and stylistic feature in the texts as symptomatic of trauma, even when a traumatic memory is not represented directly in the narrative. According to Marina Kopf, “literature as [a] trauma witness does not only demand attentive writing but attentive reading as well. Active listening and a reading aware of the structure of trauma and of the effects of violence form part of the narrative transmission and transformation of traumatic memory” (2009, 53). As I discussed at length in the introductory chapter, the terms ‘trauma novels’ describe a specific type of “literature written with a conscious awareness of the concept” (Vickroy 2015, 3) of trauma. The type of reading enabled by trauma novels is “a kind of reception [of trauma] through art that is aware of the mechanisms of trauma and supports the narration of trauma coming into being” (Kopf 2009,

53). Like Kopf, Kacandes also argues that readers perform a certain type of witnessing that enables the narration of trauma: “A story may be written in isolation, but to be considered

175

‘told’, it must be received through the act of ‘reading’” (Kacandes 1999, 56). For Kacandes, readers are like listeners because they provide the necessary preconditions for the retelling of trauma to occur. The reader is “the one who triggers [the retelling of trauma], its initiation, as well as the guardian of its process and of its momentum” (Felman & Laub 2013, 58). As

Christine Watson highlights in her study of Aboriginal autobiographical texts, literary testimony only comes into being when it is received in the act of reading. She posits that “the legacy invoked by acts of witnessing depends on the existence of a reading subject who, it is assumed, will read and engage with the narrative and, therefore, be implicated by the text to carry the responsibility that witnessing entails” (Watson 2000, 148). Watson is referring to autobiography in her research into literary testimony, a genre that is governed by a specific set of conventions regarding notions of truth (Lejeune 1989, 15). Unlike autobiography, the selected texts never place readers in a position to pass judgement on the validity of the accounts of suffering with which they are presented. Readers are not expected to enter into an autobiographical pact with the narrator (Lejeune 1989, 15), by which they are supposed to believe that they are reading a “retrospective prose narrative written by a real person concerning his existence” (Lejeune 1989, 4). Readers are made aware from the outset that they are dealing with fictionalised responses to the multiple traumas that besieged Somalia and

Ethiopia over generations.

Obviously, there is no guarantee that the intended recipients of trauma narratives will assume the role of an empathetic listener. In the selected texts, there is no guarantee that readers will engage in this type of reading akin to witnessing. As I highlighted in chapter four, witnessing is characterised by both a difficulty for victims to narrate their trauma, and for listeners to listen to it. It is obviously also difficult to read about trauma. Kopf highlights, reading “can be exerted with more or less quality” (2009, 53). For some readers, the type of reading demanded by

176

trauma novels may prove unbearable. Readers may stop reading trauma novels, overcome with feelings of discomfort, unease, and even physical revulsion at the highly distressing accounts of trauma to which they are exposed. Other readers may persevere, striving to understand the pain of those victims crying out from within the pages of works like Miranda’s text Calles

Corrientes in Oltre Babilonia.

To encourage readers to persevere, authors have embedded depictions of trauma within fictional narratives as an incentive to continue reading. The selected texts intertwine the tragic histories of Somalia and Ethiopia with highly engrossing narratives that deal with themes of family, relationships, migration and female identity. By situating these historical tragedies within larger fictional worlds, these authors entice their readers to continue reading to learn more about the turbulent lives of the protagonists. Scego addresses the unresolved trauma of

Italy’s colonial past in Africa while contemporaneously deconstructing notions of race and identity in modern Italy and documenting the plight of those who disappeared under the military junta in Argentina. She creates a complex, variegated text that is likely to appeal to a diverse readership by offering a variety of overlapping individual stories and viewpoints.

Brioni aptly recognises that Scego’s “success is connected not only to her prolific writing, but also to her ability to address different audiences, which include people interested in migrant writing, world literature, transnational feminism, and the representation of multicultural youth in Italy” (2015, 149). Meanwhile, Clarissa Clò highlights that Ghermandi’s artistic works, both literary and performance based, are intended to encourage her audience to enter Ethiopian culture and history: “By taking the audience away from their comfort zones, and pushing us

(…) [into] a culturally and linguistically unfamiliar territory that seduces and estranges,

Ghermandi (…) [asks] us to trust her and follow the journey she laid out for us” (2009, 146).

In the case of Regina, Mahlet serves as the entry point into Ethiopian history and culture.

177

Readers are entreated to accompany the protagonist on a journey into adulthood and are gradually exposed to the atrocities in Ethiopia’s past along the way. Timira has been compared to the New Italian Epic (Enciclopedia de studio Afroeuropeos 2011), a genre that draws “its readers into a narration, in which they feel represented” (Boscolo 2010, 24) to ensure that

“traumatic historical facts (…) that exert a negative influence on the present – are retold”

(Boscolo 2010, 24). Italian readers are presented with a portrayal of contemporary Italy that is familiar and relatable to them, refracted through the eyes of the protagonist Isabella, a character who lives through Italian colonialism and experienced its adverse effects firsthand. The authors of trauma novels considered here do not alienate readers with unrelenting depictions of violence and suffering and present instead complex, multi-layered narratives that unfold across different languages, cultures, and continents. As Michael Richardson argues texts have the capacity to limit and cut the reader off from trauma memory (2013, 170), just as they can provide a “contemplative and experiential link” (Vickroy 2015, xi) to it.

Affect and the embodied reading of trauma

The selected texts attempt to convey their effects to readers, which allow readers, allowing readers to viscerally comprehend the trauma of protagonists. The type of reading elicited by the selected texts hinges on their ability to produce affect in a reader, which assumes that affect can be produced through reading alone (without the physical presence of the trauma victim).

Etymologically, the “term affect is one translation of the Latin affectus, which can be translated as ‘passion’ or emotion’” (Brennan 2004, 3). It refers to the primal intensity that accompanies an experience and “is the name we give to those forces – visceral forces beneath, alongside, or generally other than conscious knowing, vital forces existing beyond emotion” (Seigworth &

Gregg 2010, 1). In contemporary theory21, the notion of affect is closely aligned with passion

21 A significant body of research on affect has emerged in recent scholarship. For further information on the topic of affect readers should consult Brian Massumi’s “Notes on the Translation and Acknowledgements” in A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari, Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota, 1987 and

178

– in that it is a deeply embodied – rather than a cognitive experience. Affect is social in origin but is experienced physiologically. It is the physiological force that complements emotions, whether they be joyous or sorrowful (Shouse 2005). Affect is experienced in modulations of intensity. It can augment and diminish the physiological intensity of an experience (Richardson

2015).

Affect exists between bodies rather than residing within them. It does not “erupt from the inside

(...) [because] the body is always already wholly implicated in its milieu” (Probyn 2010, 76).

Affect arises out of an interaction with other people and environments (Brennan 2004, 4). It endlessly traverses bodies, boundaries, and surfaces (Massumi 2002, 27) and lies “beyond the limits of the skin and the fixities of language” (Richardson 2013, 156). Culture and gender studies therorists Gregory Seigworth and Melissa Gregg contend that a body can refer to a

“human, nonhuman, part-body, and otherwise” (2010, 1). According to this definition, a body is anything that has the “potential to reciprocate or co-participate in the passages of affect”

(Seigworth & Gregg 2010, 2). In the realm of literary studies, Richardson has advanced the position that affect can be produced in the act of reading. For Richardson, texts can co- participate in the passage of affect. This is because affect does not reside within the reader. It arises out of the interaction between the text and the reader. Affect is ignited in the act of reading because bodies are comprised of “incipencies and tendencies” (Massumi 2002, 31).

Bodies have the ability to affect and to be affected. The act of reading holds the possibility of provoking an embodied response from readers. Richardson observes that affect “is experienced

Parables of the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durnham: Duke University Press, 2002; Silvan Tompkin’s Exploring Affect: The Selected Writing of Silvan S. Tompkins. ed. Virginia E. Demos, New York: Press of the University of Cambridge, 1993; Teresa Brennan’s The Transmission of Affect, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004; Patricia Ticiento Clough’s edited work The Affective Turn: Theorizing the Social, Durnham: Duke University Press, 2007; and Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth’s edited work The Affect Theory Reader, Durham: Duke University Press, 2010. For further information specifically devoted to trauma and affect readers should consult Meera Atkinson and Michael Richardson’s edited work Traumatic Affect, Cambridge: Cambridge University Publishing, 2013.

179

differently by different bodies” (2013, 155). It can spill off the page “evoking tenderness, inciting rage, exciting fear – in short, (…) affect can inflame nerves and muscles in a conflagration of every conceivable kind of passion” (Gibbs 2001, 1). While authors can try to impress upon readers a certain feeling or sensation, they cannot predetermine their readers’ reaction. An attempt to manufacture sympathy for a certain character may backfire with the reader failing to experience a prescribed emotion. Or it may result in the reader turning against a certain character, finding their display of emotion to be trite or disingenuous. Affect is of course always tied to context (Richardson 2013, 156). It can be reasonably assumed that the affect experienced by readers correlates with the scenes that are depicted in the text.

Richardson’s focus is specifically on writing the affect of torture. His work is concerned with fiction depicting the state-sanctioned torture of detainees by the United States intelligence agencies in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (Richardson 2013, 151).

Despite his explicit focus on torture, Richardson’s theory of affect in fiction is relevant to my analysis. Torture is an inherently traumatic experience that is accompanied by a retinue of negative “affects that work with it, on it and through it” (Richardson 2013, 170) like distress, rage, terror, humiliation and disgust (Tomkins 2008, xv-xix). For example, readers may be nauseated and horrified by Miranda’s graphic depictions of Ernesto’s sizzling flesh as he is electrocuted (Scego 2008, 243). In the context of my research, I am interested in the negative affective states that the body is likely to undergo in the act of reading about trauma like “shame, fear, disgust and contempt” (Richardson 2013, 153). These affective states are registered by the body and result in physical feelings, like discomfort and displeasure. The act of reading about violence, misery, and abuse transmutes into physical sensations allowing for an embodied response to trauma.

180

Affect relies on the imaginative capabilities of readers and their ability to conceive of the trauma experienced by protagonists on an embodied level. It “is precisely that which is always in formation, not yet concrete” (Richardson 2013, 156). Like witnessing, the type of reading elicited by trauma novels encourage readers to intuit and imagine the pain of others. Felman attests that “as readers, we are witnesses precisely to (…) questions we do not own and do not yet understand but which summon and beseech us from within literary texts” (2013, xiii).

Affect can “impart some experience of the not-yet, the could-have-been, the more-than- occurred” (Richardson 2013, 168). Trauma novels invite readers to comprehend the hurt and sorrow experienced by traumatised protagonists. For instance, to feel the searing heat of the explosions from the Italian artillery that Yacob encountered on the battlefield in Regina, or the lacerating pain of the riding crop that beat Isabella in Timira or the warm trickle of blood that

Famey and Majid felt running onto the sand as they lay hands clasped in one anothers’ after their attack in Oltre Babilonia. While it is not feasible for this study to measure an Italian readership’s affective response to trauma novels, it is possible to examine the literary style used by the selected authors that are intended to represent and convey trauma to an Italian readership.

Strategies for the transmission of trauma

The authors draw on a diverse range of literary devices and stylistic features in an “attempt to communicate the traumatic experiences of the characters within the novel” (Kacandes 2001,

111) to readers. Kacandes creates an inventory of some of these literary devices. These include

“an explicit request for [witnessing to occur] through pronouns of address” (2001, 111), which is found in Regina. As I will explain, the protagonist Mahlet uses the pronoun voi to interpellate an Italian audience into a position similar to that of an empathetic listener. Kacandes identifies other literary devices “like narrative indirection, anachrony, ellipses, and repetition to mimic traumatic symptoms” (Kacandes 2001, 111). Oltre Babilonia relies on the literary devices of

181

repetition, anachrony, and ellipses to represent and convey trauma to readers. Kacande’s inventory is by no means exhaustive. I also identify the presence of a fictional relationship between an author and a reader as another literary device of Oltre Babilonia that generates a type of reading commensurate with witnessing. Furthermore, my analysis discusses the use of photographs as the main stylistic feature that the authors of Timira draw on to represent and convey trauma to readers. In section three of this chapter I demontrate that text and image work together in Timira to convey trauma to the reader. The image of Giorgio is embedded within a narrative that recounts the pain and anguish felt by Isabella. It is the combination of these two elements – the words to describe the trauma and the image to visually depict it that form part of a coherent strategy on the authors’ behalf to elicit a type of reading equivalent with witnessing.

La vostra storia: positioning the reader as a witness to trauma

In the final chapter of Regina Mahlet starts to write down the memories that she has witnessed after returning to Ethiopia, just as Bekelech had hoped. Mahlet narrates: “Aprii la finestra e mi sedetti. In un angolo della scrivania c’era una scatola piena di penne (…). Ne presi una, aprii il quadernone e cominciai a scrivere” (Ghermandi 2007, 296). Through the process of witnessing Mahlet has experienced the trauma of the victims she encountered at the monastery.

The protagonist has absorbed these memories and now feels compelled to narrate her own testimony. During the process of listening to the memories of victims of Italian colonialism,

Mahlet’s own story emerges. Like many young Ethiopians, Mahlet grew up under the oppressive Derg dictatorship and lived in fear for most of her life. In the final line of the text,

Mahlet indicates that the Italian readership will bear witness to her trauma. In the following quote Mahlet addresses the reader directly using the pronoun voi: “Un giorno il vecchio Yacob mi chiamò nella sua stanza, e gli feci una promessa. Un giuramento solenne davanti alla sua

Madonna dell’icona. Ed è per questo che oggi vi racconto la sua storia. Che poi è anche la mia.

182

Ma pure la vostra” (Ghermandi 2007, 299). The use of voi interpellates the reader into a position approximate to an empathetic listener. As Kacandes indicates “the use of ‘you’ automatically implies a relationship between two parties, and instances of it in fiction that are not designated as quoted dialogue or embedded storytelling invite actual readers to enter into a relationship with the participant narrator through the text” (2001, 32). Mahlet begins her testimony to an Italian reader with a memory from her childhood: “I tre venerabili anziani di casa, me lo dicevano sempre negli anni dell’infanzia durante i caffè delle donne: ‘Da grande sarai la nostra cantora’” (Ghermandi 2007, 299). By opening with an anecdote from her childhood, Mahlet indicates to an Italian readership that she is ready to narrate and externalise her own traumatic upbringing under the Derg. She transitions from the position of an empathetic listener to that of a trauma victim. In these reflections on her childhood Mahlet displays her identity as a cantora to the reader, invoking the “oral tradition of her native culture” (Manzin 2011, 211). By doing so, she signals that her own Bildungsroman narrative will encompass the voices of those she has encountered over the course of the text.

Cristina Lombardi-Diop has described Regina as a “romanzo corale” (2007, 308) due to the multitude of voices that inhabit the text. While this chorus of voices are individual and unique it is Mahlet’s voice, as the designated cantora that will unite them into a “vocal assemblage”

(Watson 2000, 146). Watson uses the term vocal assemblage to denote communities relying on a “singular communal voice to convey their individual stories” (2000, 146). Watson adopts the term from anthropologist Anthony Cohen who first used it in his 1995 text The Symbolic

Construction of Community. Cohen asserted that communities mobilise:

because members feel themselves to be under so severe threat by some extrinsic source that if they do not speak out now they may be silenced forever. Further, they do so because (…) they feel the message of this vocal assemblage (…) to be informed directly by their own experiences and mentalities. And they do so because their members find their identities as individuals through their occupancy of the community’s social space (1995, 109).

183

Mahlet becomes the spokesperson for this vocal assemblage, transcribing a chorus of voices into textual form. By assigning Mahlet the role of the cantora, the community authorises her to address an Italian readership on their behalf. They recognise that she speaks for the vocal assemblage. Her testimony – as a victim of the Derg dictatorship – will also encompass the narratives of Italian colonisation she has collected during her time at the monastery of Giorgis.

Watson highlights that communities form a vocal assemblage when faced with the threat of being silenced (2000, 146). In the context of Regina the victims of colonialism who form the vocal assemblage exhibit a fear that their testimonies will fade into oblivion if they are not retold. Their testimonies face the existential threat of being forgotten by Italians. At the beginning of the text Yacob emphasises that the testimonies of Ethiopia’s colonial past must be passed on to an Italian readership, ordaining: “Attraverserai il mare che hanno attraversato

Pietro e Paolo e porterai le nostre storie nella terra degli italiani” (Ghermandi 2007, 6).

Individually, victims of colonialism narrate their testimony to Mahlet “to know one’s story, unimpeded by ghosts from the past” (Felman & Laub 2013, 18). Collectively, the members of the vocal assemblage recognise that these testimonies must in turn be witnessed by an Italian readership in order to not be forgotten. When Mahlet addresses readers directly at the end of the novel with the pronoun voi, they have been made aware that they are being addressed by the cantora acting as a proxy for her entire community.

Despite the imperative for Mahlet to “recuperare e raccontare” (Comberiati 2011, 156) these stories, the protagonist does not ostracise Italian readers from the vocal assemblage of her community. Mahlet realises that as a cantora, her role is as a “figure of mediation” (Manzin

2011, 117) between the two cultures of Italy and Ethiopia. Manzin highlights that by straddling two cultures and epistemological traditions (written and oral) Mahlet’s responsibility is twofold: not only must she transport the testimonies of her forbearers into the “Italian literary

184

scene” (2011, 120), she is also responsible for bringing Italian readers into her own oral culture.

Ghermandi achieves this through the evocation of orality. The author incorporates Ethiopian oral traditions into the text by designating Mahlet as a cantora and through the inclusion of fukerà – songs of the Ethiopian resistance during the Italian invasion (Clò 2010, 36). By doing so “Ghermandi brings to the fore the art of storytelling which is reminiscent of the oral tradition typical of the writer’s country of birth” (Manzin 2011, 116). Mahlet entreats the reader to enter into a “circle of storytelling” (Manzin 2011, 120) and participate in the narration of traumatic memory22.

According to Barbara De Vivo, the circle of storytelling enables individual memories to become the property of the entire group: “Le storie circolano da corpo a corpo e tra corpi attraverso le bocche, le orecchie e le mani di chi narra e di chi ascolta (…). Intesa in questo modo fluidi e corporeale la trasmissione della memoria diventa una sorta di continuum in cui ogni storyteller e ogni ascoltatore non rappresenta che uno dei possibili nodi attraverso cui la memoria transita” (2013, 139). Once memories are retold within the circle of storytelling they no longer strictly belong to the storyteller. They are passed on to listeners who in turn become responsible for them. By foregrounding the oral tradition of storytelling, Ghermandi emulates the physical act of sitting together in the circle and “il lettore diventa quindi parte attiva di un rituale collettivo del ricordo, che unisce ieri e oggi, passato e presente, Italia ed Etiopia” (De

Vivo 2013, 139). By recreating the circle of storytelling through the orality of the text,

Ghermandi facilitates a type of reading that is commensurate with witnessing.

22 Manzin makes reference to Adriana Cavarero’s concept of the circle of storytelling in her analysis (2011, 112). Cavarero has a specific understanding of storytelling predicated on Hannah Arendt’s notion of “co-appearance” (Manzin 2007, 111) in which the self is constituted through its exposure to another. My analysis does not draw on this specific understanding of storytelling. I instead use the term ‘circle of storytelling’ to conjure the physical act of sitting together retelling memories to one another. I do not imbue the act of storytelling with the same significance that Manzin has done by drawing on Cavarero.

185

I suggest that the act of storytelling is comparable with the act of witnessing. In her study of oral culture Kacandes observes that storytelling bears striking similarities to witnessing.

Kacandes remarks that the practice of storytelling is reliant on “the presence of the listener

(…), not just [as] a convention but [as] a necessity for the telling of the tale. The listening required for such tales must constitute a response that brings teller and listener into a relationship. And whereas [a] relationship leads to sustenance and survival, its failure to materialize threatens the existence of the teller and the community” (Kacandes 2001, 39). Both the storyteller and the trauma victim are existentially dependent on a listener to be the recipient of their narrative. In Regina, the protagonist happens to be both a cantora and a trauma victim.

She narrates the story of her upbringing and her community to an Italian reader and in the process testifies to the trauma they have endured over generations. Italian readers are required to participate in the circle of storytelling because this relationship “can only be sustained when

‘speaker’ and ‘respondent’ are equally active” (Kacandes 2001, 33). To engage in the type of reading commensurate with witnessing Italian readers are invited to recognise themselves as the intended audience of Mahlet’s testimony and “feel the vocative force of the narrator’s ‘you’

- they have to feel that they are addressed by it, and they have to be willing to enter into an intimate relationship with the storyteller and the communities effected and affected by the stories told” (2001, 62). By entering into the circle of storytelling, they must be willing to imagine the incredible hurt and anguish expressed by characters in the vocal assemblage and come to understand the continued effect of this trauma.

During her time as a cantora, Mahlet learns the art of storytelling. Many denizens of the

Ethiopian community impart their wisdom to the young protagonist. For instance, Abbaba

Igirsà Salò – a man who lost his entire family during the Italian invasion (Ghermandi 2007,

166) – cautions Mahlet: “Se mai tu dovessi usare la mia storia, sistema le parole in modo da

186

non recare offesa a chicchessia. Sai, parlare di qualcuno equivale a renderlo ospite. Ospite delle proprie parole. E da noi l’ospite è sacro” (Ghermandi 2007, 179). Lessons like this teach Mahlet to invite her readership into Ethiopia’s rich oral tradition rather than alienate them. Abbaba

Igirsà Salò’s use of the word l’ospite or guest evokes Jacque Derrida’s notion of hospitality.

Derrida identifies the altruistic notion of absolute hospitality, which “requires that I open up my home and that I give not only to the foreigner (…), but to the absolute, unknown, anonymous other, that I give place to them” (2000, 23-25). For Derrida, absolute hospitality requires unconditional acceptance of the other regardless of their language, culture or creed.

This amounts to relinquishing all control “as though the place in question in hospitality were a place originally belonging to neither host nor guest, but to the gesture by which one of them welcomes the other” (2000, 62). Abbaba Igirsà Salò’s model of storytelling is predicated on this notion of absolute hospitality and a desire to welcome the other into the community.

Mahlet tries to honour his belief in hospitality when recounting the testimonies that she has collected at the monastery. By foregrounding her identity as a cantora and evoking the oral tradition of storytelling the protagonist avoids associating herself with a Western notion of authorship. Instead, her status as an Ethiopian bard (Clò 2010, 36), makes her the vessel of other peoples’ testimonies. As Manzin highlights, “If (…) we accept that she is not an author as such, in that she puts into words the story of a medley of different heroes (…) we must concede that her role of narrator and architect of the overarching narration establishes Mahlet as the creator of the narrative space through which these (…) [characters] (and herself) acquire a narratable life” (2011, 118). While she is responsible for these testimonies, like that of Yacob and Bekelech, she is not in control of them. In oral traditions, the role of the bard, as the custodian of culture, is to compile, preserve, and disseminate stories so that they can be passed on to successive generations (Viana 2011). As a cantora, Mahlet comes to realise that she is

187

merely a link in an ongoing sequence of transmission. Her role is largely self-effacing. Rather than asserting authorship over the testimonies she has collected the protagonist narrates them to readers in order to perpetuate their existence.

In her study into Derrida’s notion of hospitality, Judith Still observes that “the laws of hospitality which govern the culturally sanctioned role of the host as master of the house would fit with our sense of the author as the master of his work. As author I would choose to invite in suitable guests who will behave appropriately (…). I would select those who are like me, my peers, [who] speak my language” (2004, 115). I draw on Still’s work on hospitality to further illustrate the use of storytelling in the text as a means of eliciting witnessing from Italian readers. The evocation of orality in Regina ensures that Mahlet is not portrayed as the master of the text. The act of narrating testimony is instead conceived of as an inclusive act that incorporates the reader into the circle of storytelling. Mahlet’s use of the pronoun voi is an invitation to the unknown, anonymous reader to bear witness to the intergenerational trauma that has plagued her community. By including the reader in this circle of storytelling the protagonist is passing on the testimonies that have been passed down to her. Thus honouring

“the singular and absolute law of hospitality (…). Where the text would be criss-crossed by the words of others. There would be others’ words in my mouth (…), words, which have already been in the mouths of others” (Still 2004, 115). The reader is therefore included in “an ongoing chain of witnessing” (Watson 2000, 149) that ensures that Mahlet’s testimony be transmitted outside of the literary space. Readers are encouraged to consider Mahlet’s testimony and those she has collected at the monastery within the context of contemporary Italy.

Regina is not the only text to avoid a Western notion of authorship, which equates authorship with mastery and ownership of the text (Still 2004, 115). In Ghermandi’s text “orality appears

188

in the way the book is written and the stories are told, as well as in the way it features in

Ethiopian society through the figure of the azmari, the local bard - akin to the Italian cantastorie or the Senegalese griot” (Clo 2010, 36). Wu Ming 2, the co-author of Timira also identifies with the figure of the cantastorie or storyteller (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 112). By presenting Wu Ming 2 as a storyteller rather than as an author the text also invites an Italian reader into an ongoing chain of witnessing. Timira places the onus on its readers to pass on the stories they are exposed to in the text by addressing them as a participant in the act of storytelling. Kacandes asserts that the act of storytelling warrants a ‘response’ from the reader:

“The recital, reception, and passing on of stories (…), specifically, the statement of these texts should be thought of as the narrator’s entire recital of the story, and the ‘reply’ as the readers’ proper reception and eventual retelling of that story” (Kacandes 2001, 33). As outlined in the introduction, this chapter does not aim to gauge the response of the reader. Instead, it identifies the literary devices and stylistic features that engender a specific type of reading akin to witnessing. Timira evokes the oral tradition of storytelling to include readers in a chain of witnessing. It entreats them to respond by retelling the testimony of Isabella outside of the literary space, as evidenced in the following quote: “Le storie sono di tutti - nascono da una comunità e alla comunità ritornano - anche quando hanno la forma di una autobiografia e sembrano appartenere a una persona sola, perché sono le sue memorie, la sua vita, come il caso di questo romanzo meticcio” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 503). By writing Isabella’s testimony the co-authors intend for it to enter back into the community. Along with their rejection of Western notions of authorship, Wu Ming 2 and Antar Mohamed incorporate archival material, letters, and photographs into the narrative to generate a type of reading akin to witnessing, which I will now discuss.

Ghostly revenants: photography and witnessing

189

Unlike Regina, Timira relies on documentary material, like photographs to appeal directly to an Italian readership. Stephanie Neu refers to “the insertion of ‘real’ elements into texts” (2014,

3)23 as forensic material. Forensic material “is concerned with the historically real and uses evidence of that reality” (Neu 2014, 11). Photographs are real in the sense that they exist independently from the text and provide ‘evidence’ of Isabella’s life. The reproduction of forensic material does not try to authenticate the text. From the outset the reader is made aware of the blurring of fact and fiction in the retelling of Isabella’s life. The co-authors begin the text with the following quote: “Questa è una storia vera (…) comprese le parti che non lo sono”

(Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 5-6). Instead, Neu argues that forensic material in this text serves to convey Isabella’s trauma to readers.

On several occasions, the archival documents are placed outside of the ‘Historical Archives’, to illustrate an argument or an anecdote; however, they never fulfil a purely ‘ornamental’ function but still retain a dimension associated with the notion of forensic material (…). They are interspersed in the narrative as ‘witnesses’ that help the reader to form an image - in every sense of the word - of the past (2014, 6)24.

This is demonstrated at the bar in Val di Fiemme. In this scene, a photograph of Giorgio

Marincola is present during the encounter between Isabella and Carlo (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed

2012, 153). It is present in the sense that the photograph is not simply described or represented with words but instead reprinted on the page for the reader to view. The inclusion of the photograph helps position the reader as a witness to trauma. After reading about Isabella’s humiliation at the hands of local customers, the reader is presented with the black and white image of Giorgio and a fellow resistance fighter. The inclusion of the photograph collapses the boundary “between the fictional scene of the novel and the empirical world of the reader” (Neu

23 “L’insertion d’éléments ‘réels’ dans des textes” (Neu 2014, 3, translation Françoise Campbell). 24 À plusieurs reprises, les documents d’archives sont égalment places hors des ‘Archives historiques’, pour illustrer un argument ou une anecdote; ils ne remplissent cependant jamais de function purement ‘ornamentale’ mai possèdent toujours une dimension associée à la notion de forensic material (…). Ils sont intercalés dans le récit comme des ‘temoins’ qui aident le lecteur à se forger une image - dans tous les sens du terme - du passé (Neu 2014, 6, translation Françoise Campbell).

190

2014, 7)25. The photograph exists both within the narrative and outside of it. Italian readers are informed in the text’s Archivio fotografico (photographic archive) that the photograph of

Giorgio and his compatriot Eugenio Bonvinci taken in 1944 belongs to Antar’s personal archive (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 523). The photograph has an existence outside of the text. It is a remnant of a real life that was lived and lost on Italian soil, that of Giorgio. However, this genuine vestige of the past is situated within an entirely fictional scene of witnessing taking place between Isabella and Carlo. The co-authors confirm “questo è un capitolo del tutto immaginario” (Wu Ming 2 & Mohamed 2012, 512). In the scene, the photograph becomes the ultimate arbitrator of memory in the dispute over Giorgio’s identity between Isabella and Carlo.

It is only after viewing the photograph of Giorgio that Carlo accepts Isabella’s version of the past and assumes the role of an empathetic listener.

Together with the narrative, this specific photograph of Giorgio located at this point in the narrative conveys Isabella’s trauma to an Italian reader. Giorgia Alù and Nancy Pedri contend:

“Photography (…), like words and poetic writing (…) can fix – both intimately and objectively

– emotions, people, events, and objects. Unlike words, however, it conveys its subjects visually” (2015, 4). Alù and Pedri highlight that there is a growing body of research in Italian studies dedicated to the relationship between photography and literature to which Timira can contribute (2015, 12). The incorporation of Giorgio’s photograph into the narrative reflects the articulation of Isabella’s traumatic experience. As outlined in the introductory chapter, traumatic memories take the form of photographic stills rather than words (Ganteau & Onega

2014, 3). The photograph of Giorgio is representative of the traumatic memory that Isabella is condemned to continually relive. Its inclusion in the narrative signals Isabella’s attempt to

25 “Entre scène fictive et monde empirique du lecteur” (Neu 2014, 7, translation Françoise Campbell).

191

translate the “wordless” (Auerhahn & Laub 1990, 451) images of trauma into narrative form by bearing her testimony.

The fact that the photograph is surrounded by a fiction is largely inconsequential. The photograph is not supposed to convince readers of the historical accuracy of the narrative. It serves to communicate the “subjective truth” (Felman & Laub 2013, 62) of Isabella on a visceral level. Wu Ming 2 and Antar Mohamed corroborate that the “romanzo è fedele alle testimonianze di Isabella Marincola e le rielabora senza stravolgerne il contenuto. Esso dunque non intende raccontare una verità assoluta ma piú modestamente la verità-di-Isabella, il suo punto di vista sul mondo reale e sugli esseri umani che vi ha conosciuto” (2012, 505). Isabella’s account of her brother’s tragic death engages the reader by depicting the heartbreaking loss of a sibling. Her testimony serves to “penetrate us [the readers] like an actual life” (Felman &

Laub 2013, 2). The photograph helps to communicate the emotional resonance of Isabella’s testimony, even if the encounter with Carlo and the other patrons at Val di Fiemme is entirely fictional.

Memory studies scholar, Marianne Hirsch, argues that photography is an exemplary medium for conveying trauma (2001, 14). She argues that photographs “do more than represent scenes and experiences of the past. They can communicate an emotional or bodily experience by evoking the viewer’s own emotional and bodily memories. They produce affect in the viewer”

(2001, 11). As highlighted above in this chapter, affect denotes the physiological intensity that accompanies an experience. According to Brennan, affect can be low or high in intensity. She clarifies that all “affects have an energetic dimension. This is why they can enhance or deplete”

(2004, 6) an experience. In trauma novels, readers are exposed to the raw, savage intensities that accompany depictions of extreme psychological distress and excruciating pain and the

192

torpor characters feel who have exhausted their mental faculties coping with trauma. In the case of Timira, the affect of trauma can be assumed to be relatively high in intensity – given

Isabella is attempting to convey harrowing and deeply upsetting memories of losing her brother. While Isabella is pleading with the locals to believe her the reader is simultaneously confronted by Giorgio’s picture. Roland Barthes refers to the affective piercing of the reader by a crucial element of the photograph as the ‘punctum’ of the image. He defines the punctum as a “sting, speck, cut (…) that bruises me, is poignant to me” (Barthes 1981, 27). The punctum denotes the element of an image that triggers a physiological response from the viewer. In the context of this research the punctum generates the physical intensity that accompanies the feelings of distress and sorrow associated with viewing an image that distils the traumatic experience narrated by the victim, Isabella. It can be described as that which “captures the eye.

This little something, which may be quite inconspicuous at first, wounds the viewer, and through this wound, the hidden world behind the image moves into the viewer’s life” (Valiere

& Lippens 2004, 320). In the case of Timira the affective piercing of the viewer can be attributed to the “incongruity or incommensurability between the meaning of a given object then and the one it holds now” (Hirsch & Spitzer 2006, 359). The crucial element of the photograph, to which the punctum refers is the fact that Giorgio is going to die. As Barthes explains photographs depict both what will be and has been: “I observe with horror an anterior future of which death is the stake. By giving me the absolute past of the pose (…), the photograph tells me death is the future (…). I shudder (…) over a catastrophe which has already occurred” (1981, 96). The photograph’s poignancy is due to its depiction of Giorgio in the final days of his life. In viewing the photograph, the reader is confronted by the inevitability of

Giorgio’s death and the ensuing grief Isabella will have to endure. They are presented with a painful prospect of a death they are powerless to prevent. Hirsch explains: “We reanimate the

[photographic] subjects (…) trying to give them life again, to protect them from the death we

193

know must occur, has already occurred. Here is the pathos, the punctum” (2001, 27) of the image. The reader is forced to look at the face of a young man unaware of his imminent death; a young man who suffered the trauma of cultural and maternal loss because of Italy’s imperial ambitions and lost his life fighting the scourge of Fascism only to have his plight forgotten by the customer of the local bar because of the colour of his skin.

Similarly to an empathetic listener, readers are made to feel “the victim’s victories, defeats and silences” (Laub 2013, 58) by viewing the photograph. The affective response elicited by the image enables them to empathise with trauma victims, like Isabella. In affect theory, empathy is described as “an affective relation, rapport or bond with the other recognised as other”

(Probyn 2010, 86). Alison Landsberg explains that while “sympathy presupposes an initial likeness between subjects, empathy starts from a position of difference” (1997, 82). The act of witnessing allows the reader to viscerally understand the trauma experienced by meticcio characters like Giorgio and Isabella. Empathy bridges the “lack of identity between”

(Landsberg 1997, 82) the trauma victim and the reader. In Timira Giorgio’s photograph establishes “a sort of umbilical cord [that] links the body of the photographed thing to my [the viewer’s] gaze: light, though impalpable, is here a carnal medium, a skin I share with anyone who has been photographed” (Barthes 1981, 80-81). The physicality conjured by viewing the photograph on the page triggers an affective response from readers that engenders empathy.

Photographs “touch the viewer who feels rather than simply sees the event” (Bennett 2005, 36).

As forensic objects, they render the past material, provoking a bodily response that accompanies a cognitive understanding of trauma (Hirsch 2008, 117). The affective response triggered by the image allows readers to view the photograph from Isabella’s perspective, allowing them to comprehend the pain Isabella feels having lost a brother who gave his life fighting for a country that refused to recognise his identity as an Italian. By incorporating

194

forensic objects as ‘evidence’ or physical traces of the past into the narrative Timira appeals to readers on a visual level, enhancing the pathos of Isabella’s words.

The use of forensic objects enables Italian readers to assume a role akin to that of an empathetic listener. It does not guarantee they will do so as it cannot be assumed that the photograph alone posseses the capacity to convey trauma to readers. It is the narrative that accompanies the photograph that is likely to first provoke anguish in the reader by recounting the tragic circumstances under which Isabella lost her brother. Hirsch privileges photography as the primary medium to convey trauma. In her research into the transmission of traumatic memory

Hirsch contends that “more than oral or written narratives, photographic images (…) function as ghostly revenants from an irretrievably lost past world” (2008, 123). Hirsch seems to imply that there is a metonymic relationship between trauma and photography. According to Hirsch, photographs “enable us, in the present (…) to see and to touch” (2008, 155) the past. The embodied act of viewing a photograph provides a more immediate link to the past that is missing from oral and written accounts of trauma. In opposition to Hirsch, I have attempted to present photography as one of several mediums for conveying trauma to readers. A medium that is no more effective than its oral or written counterparts. I do not argue that by viewing the photograph of Giorgio readers automatically witness Isabella’s trauma. Instead, it is the combined effect of the text, which verbalises Isabella’s testimony and the image, which visually represents it that conveys trauma to readers. As Alù and Pedri explain “words and images are interdependent” (2015, 20) in conveying the narrator’s viewpoint. The photograph visually testifies to the trauma that Isabella endured, a trauma the reader is intimately acquainted with, having previously read about Isabella and Giorgio’s turbulent upbringing together. The photograph does not convey trauma in and of itself. Instead, it visually reinforces the trauma of Isabella’s words.

195

Reading between the lines: The circuit of witnessing in Oltre Babilonia

Oltre Babilonia draws on very different literary devices to elicit a type of reading akin to witnessing. In contrast to Regina, it does not interpellate an Italian reader into a position similar to that of an empathetic listener with the use of direct address. Nor does it rely on the inclusion of forensic material as in Timira. Instead, Scego provides a template of witnessing for readers through the relationship between Zuhra and Miranda. While Oltre Babilonia is comprised of a plurality of individual stories the main emphasis, in my opinion, is on the intergenerational trauma that encompasses the rape of Famey and Majid, the persecution and forced migration of Elias and Maryam, and the molestation of Zuhra. Scego uses the parallel story of Miranda’s escape from dictatorship and brutality in Argentina as an alternative plot to illustrate the potential of witnessing to her readership. It is through reading the traumatic history of

Argentina, narrated by Miranda, that readers of Oltre Babilonia come to understand the residual trauma experienced by Somali characters like Elias, Maryam, and Zuhra on a visceral level. Miranda’s trauma stems from the crimes perpetrated by the junta against Argentines like her brother Ernesto. Miranda recalls the years of terror she and fellow Argentines suffered, recalling that: “Era dal 1976, o forse anche prima, che le persone venivano sequestrate, torturate, assassinate. Tutto nel più assoluto silenzio. Le nostre orecchie (e quelle del mondo) erano tappate, le bocche cucite, le mani legate. L’Argentina intera era stata labotomizzata”

(Scego 2008, 43). Miranda describes the regime’s grip on the Argentine populace as a psychological straightjacket. An entire nation is metaphorically bound and gagged. While

Miranda survives, Ernesto does not. She is plagued by memories of losing her brother and living under authoritarianism:

Ernesto ora è un numero (…). Di quell’elenco di trentamila desaparecidos che non sono mai più tornati a casa (…). Tanti spariti, tanti morti, tanti in esilio. Il paese aveva subito un duro colpo (…). Eravamo tutti desaparecidos. Non potevamo parlare, non potevamo discutere, non potevamo nemmeno respirare. Potevamo rischiare di fare la stessa fine dei nostri mariti, delle nostre mogli, dei nostri fratelli, delle nostre sorelle, dei nostri

196

genitori, dei nostri vicini. Tutto era controllato e per la paura a poco a poco tutti cominciarono a cancellare se stessi (Scego 2008, 45).

Miranda decides to write as a means of coping with the symptoms of her trauma. She enjoys unprecedented success and attracts a large readership, among which is Zuhra. Embedded within

Miranda’s literary works are fragments of her life in Argentina. While Miranda’s writing does not detail all aspects of her trauma to readers it does convey the effects that trauma has had on her. The literary devices of ellipses, anachrony, and repetition identified earlier in the chapter help to communicate the immense trepidation felt by Miranda while narrating her traumatic past. In this way, the text is able to mimic the symptoms of trauma to readers.

The first literary device exhibited by Miranda’s writing on the narrative is the use of ellipses.

Miranda’s daughter Mar characterises her mother’s writing as esoteric and incomplete. She describes it as “un quadro surrealista di Dalí” (Scego 2008, 167), filled with “immagini astratte di un dolore” (Scego 2008, 167). Mar criticises Miranda for writing “sempre di Argentina.

Sempre criptica, però sentiva di poterla capire meglio lì. Sentiva quasi di poterla afferrare.

Quasi. C’era sempre un buco nero in agguato” (Scego 2008, 269). Towards the end of the novel, it is revealed in letters Miranda writes for her daughter, that she withheld elements of her trauma from her readers, explaining the ellipses in the narrative. She was abducted and raped by the Argentine military. In the letters Miranda relays her apprehension to Mar: “Non m’importava d’essere stuprata. Ero più preoccupata di quel macchinario che vedevo vicino ai torturatori. Allora misero una mascherina sugli occhi. Per non vedere. E sentii quella mano.

Una mano che mi accarezzava dolcemente i capelli. Terrrore. Una cosa che non avevo previsto”

(Scego 2008, 413). Miranda’s writing is also characterised by anachrony – that is a discrepancy between the order of events in a story and the order in which they are presented in the plot. Her writing is typical of a trauma victim in that it is “composed of bits and pieces of a memory that has been overwhelmed by occurrences that have not settled into understanding or remembrance

197

(…). That cannot be constructed as knowledge nor assimilated into full cognition” (Felman &

Laub 1992, 5). Miranda tries desperately to collate these shattered fragments of traumatic memory into a coherent narrative, apologising: “Non riesco a riannodare i fili della mia strana vita in ordine croncologico. Ho qualche difficoltà con il tempo. Sarà per l’abitudine a raggomitolare la lana del tempo, sfilare la tela, ritesserla, trovare i nodi, scucire di nuovo, eliminare i nodi” (Scego 2008, 182). Despite her best attempts to recount her testimony chronologically memories of Ernesto’s disappearance continue to interrupt the narrative flow, causing Miranda to present a garbled retelling of the events that lead to her relocating to Rome.

Miranda continually reiterates her past in order to make sense of it. This represents the third literary device in her writing – namely repetition. Miranda compulsively retells her trauma.

She always returns to the death of her brother: “Ernesto lo hanno messo nell’Esma. Su questo ci siamo. Te l’ho ripetuto miliardi di volte, già. Vorrei riannodare i fili dei discorsi … ecco perché mi ripeto. Ma vorrei anche perdermi, riannodare mi fa paura. Però devo farlo” (Scego

2008, 94)26. The three literary devices of ellipses, anachrony, and repetition alert Miranda’s readers to the trauma she suffered by imitating its effects on her. Despite not having divulged her rape Miranda’s writing still conveys the symptoms of unresolved trauma to readers. This is demonstrated by the reaction of her readers. Mar is envious of the relationship that Miranda has established with her readers: “Naturalmente l’invidia per i lettori restava tutta. Piangevano quando lei piangeva. Sospiravano quando lei sospirava. Tutti in perfetta simbiosi. Solo lei,

Mar, rimaneva fuori dal coro e dal cuore di sua madre” (Scego 2008, 269). The physical reaction of readers to Miranda’s writing correlates with the definition of affect I provided earlier in the chapter. The tears and sighs described by Mar suggest that readers have been

26 Esma is an acronym for the Escuela Superior de Mecánica de la Armada - the Navy Petty Officers School of Mechanics in Buenos Aires.

198

affected by Miranda’s writing and have undergone a physiological response to trauma through reading. Mar is not similarly affected by her mother’s writing due to the breakdown in their relationship. Mar resents Miranda for withholding crucial aspects of her past. This manifests through Mar’s inability to relate to her mother’s writing.

Zuhra is among those readers who has glimpsed the trauma ensconced within Miranda’s words through reading. This is demonstrated when Zuhra – the reader happens upon Miranda – the author in Tunisia, a country to which both women have travelled to study Arabic. Zuhra instantaneously recognises Miranda as the celebrated Argentine poet confessing that she has memorised Miranda’s text Calles Corrientes (Scego 2008, 172). Unbeknown to Miranda,

Zuhra has engaged in a type of reading akin to witnessing. The literary devices of ellipses, anachrony, and repetition embedded in Miranda’s writing allow Zuhra to “grasp the [traumatic] experiences behind the words” (Gross & Hoffman 2004, 40) she had read. She intuits the tremendous sense of guilt the author feels over her complicity with the military regime in

Argentina even though she doesn’t know the full extent of Miranda’s trauma. On meeting

Miranda, Zuhra whispers to herself: “Sei una puttana, lo so io, lo sai te, lo sanno tutti i tuoi lettori. Lo hai detto in Calles Corrientes, come hai detto? Puta virgen derrama sangre en la calle/ puttana vergine versa il suo sangue per strada, puta virgen quema en su pesadilla/ puttana vergine brucia nel suo incubo, puta, virgen, mujer, muerta, Amen” (Scego 2008, 340).

In her reading of Calles Corrientes Zuhra has assumed a role similar to that of an empathetic listener. She makes specific reference to Miranda’s regret over her lurid affair with Carlos, the man who tortured political prisoners in Esma and possibly murdered Ernesto. Miranda achingly recalls being shamefully chastised by her mother: “[Carlos] applicava la picana sui testicoli.

L’ho saputo dopo qualche tempo che stavamo insieme. Anche mia madre l’ha saputo. Una sera mi ha dato uno schiaffo. E mi ha detto: ‘No mereces que te llame puta’ (…). Aveva ragione

199

mia madre (…). Ero senza dignità e una buona puttana” (Scego 2008, 99-138). Through reading Zuhra has enabled the retelling of Miranda’s trauma and completed a circuit of witnessing. According to Kacandes, in order for witnessing to occur through literature “a circuit of communication must come into being, the components of which are an enunciator

(the trauma victim) (…), a story (the narrative of the traumatic event), and an enabler for that story [the reader] (…) Like circuits, reading and witnessing only flow when all elements are connected” (1999, 56). For Zuhra, this circuit is initiated by the smattering of Somali words she finds in Miranda’s poems. Zuhra is astounded to learn that Miranda “scrive in tutte le lingue

(…). Stranamente c’è il somalo. Io l’ho conosciuta proprio per questo. Perché una sua poesia si intitola Ritorno a Mogadiscio. Mi aveva colpito come un macigno quella poesia” (Scego

2008, 237). Zuhra identifies with Miranda and becomes her “companion in a journey onto an uncharted land, a journey the survivor cannot traverse or return from alone” (Felman & Laub

2013, 59).

Zuhra’s witnessing of Miranda’s trauma through literature reflects a model of reading for readers of Oltre Babilonia to adopt. Similarly to Zuhra, readers of Oltre Babilonia may complete the circuit of witnessing, “even if it as unspecific as deducing the infliction of trauma by remarking [on] its symptoms, and thereby facilitating the flow of testimony that the characters, the text, and author try to give” (Kacandes 2001, 135). In this way, the alternative plot of Argentina illustrates the circuit of witnessing to readers of Oltre Babilonia. Through reading, Zuhra, the granddaughter of victims of colonisation and the daughter of Somali migrants who fled authoritarianism and civil war is able to witness the trauma of Miranda – an

émigré who escaped the fascist junta in Argentina. Despite their very different personal and familial histories reading enables Zuhra to breach her own culture and empathise with

Miranda’s trauma. Italian readers are encouraged to do the same and transcend their own

200

cultural boundaries by imagining the plight of characters in the text. The fictional relationship between Miranda –the author and Zuhra – the reader informs an Italian reader that “by completing the literary communicative circuit, by being a genuine ‘listener’ to the inscribed and extrapolated victims” (Kacadnes 2001, 138) they too are able to witness trauma. Unlike readers, who are exposed to a series of interconnected testimonies stemming from the legacy of intergenerational trauma that continues to haunt Somalis, Zuhra’s knowledge of her ancestral past is fragmented and incomplete. It is Zuhra who is tasked with putting the fractured mosaic of her family back together. By the end of the text, all of the individual stories begin to converge in Zuhra. She will be exposed to the trauma of her grandparents and parents through the cassettes from Elias and Maryam. As an avid reader of Miranda’s work, Zuhra has also unwittingly acquainted herself with the painful backstory of the woman her father has an affair with in Rome. She will also gain the last piece of the puzzle of her familial history by befriending her half-sister Mar.

Throughout the text, readers follow Zuhra’s attempts to come to terms with her molestation through writing. The protagonist explains that “ci ho scritto sopra tante parole, sui quaderni rossi. Delle storie. Il dottor Ross mi ha detto che scrivere era una buona idea. Che mi avrebbe aitutato a tirare fuori il femminile che è in me” (Scego 2008, 15). In response to her therapist

Doctor Ross’s suggestion Zuhra writes exclusively in red notebooks. She equates the colour red with her sexuality, which was taken from her by Aldo. Zuhra affirms that she must write in the colour she has lost to recover it, and by doing so restore her sexual identity: “Il mio romanzo lo voglio scrivere solo su quaderni rossi. Non avrebbe senso in un altro colore (…), dopotutto dovevo sincerarmi, io il rosso non lo vedo ancora” (Scego 2008, 15). Along with being associated with her sexuality, red is also the colour that links Zuhra to her ancestral heritage. When menstruating, Zuhra views the red stains in her underpants as a constellation

201

of interwoven stories that connect her to previous generations. Zuhra continues to write in the colour representative of the intergenerational trauma she has inherited. Her testimony must incorporate the painful stories of her forebears for her to make sense of the tragic circumstances that lead to her abuse. Zuhra’s knowledge of her ancestral past remains fragmentary and incomplete. Zuhra has only received Maryam’s cassette and she is yet to understand that her story is linked to a much older trauma stemming from colonial Somalia as she still requires the testimony of Elias. Unbeknown to Zuhra, she will be the recipient of her father’s cassette. On his recording, Elias explains that it was Maryam who urged him to record his testimony: “Ho due figlie. Dell’altra so solo il nome, ogni tanto le sogno insieme. La voce [di Maryam] mi ha detto che devo raccontare la mia storia a queste figlie, sopratutto a quella che ho fatto con lei”

(Scego 2008, 61). Following Maryam’s advice, Elias realises that he can atone for his shortcomings as a father by intervening in Zuhra’s life, countering the symptoms of intergenerational trauma he passed on to his daughters by deserting them. Elias can try to prevent future generations from inheriting the trauma that came to dominate his life by providing an account of the events that lead to him abandoning his family. Elias explains to his estranged daughter: “Volevo farti sapere che la tua storia di donna è legata a una storia più antica” (Scego 2008, 431), originating in colonial Somalia. Elias solicits Zuhra to pass on his testimony to her half-sister: “Zuhra mia, per facilità ti racconterò di come sono stato concepito.

E poi, se un giorno dovessi incontrare tua sorella, dovrai raccontarlo anche a lei” (Scego 2008,

63). Zuhra has a fortuitous encounter with her estranged sister Mar in Tunisia.

In Tunisia Miranda gradually befriends Zuhra and introduces her to Mar. As I explained in chapter three, Zuhra suffers from a violent seizure induced by trauma while being kissed by

Orlando. Miranda and Mar come to her rescue. The two women, who have a tumultuous relationship, put aside their differences to nurse Zuhra back to health. They take care of her in

202

the absence of her own mother Maryam, who did not make the trip to Tunisia. At the beach resort of Madhia, Miranda decides that “sarebbero state in tre in quel viaggio, con loro sarebbe venuta anche Zuhra Laamane, l’afro-romana. ‘La dobbiamo distrarre’, aveva sostenuto la genitrice.” (Scego 2008, 385). It is grief that initially unites the estranged daughters of Elias.

As a fellow victim, Mar immediately recognises Zuhra’s violent episode as a symptom of trauma. She is also recovering from a personal tragedy. Mar mourns the loss of her unborn child, which she was forced to abort by her lover Patricia, who later committed suicide.

While in Tunisia, Mar is repeatedly accosted by Patricia’s apparition, whom she quickly intuits as a manifestation of her unresolved trauma: “Patricia non era un fantasma. Era parte di lei

(…). Era una sua proiezione. Una fantasia macabre” (Scego 2008, 73). Besieged by inner demons, Mar is astounded by Zuhra’s perceived resilience after her collapse two days prior.

Mar “[si] rese conto che per convivere con quel tremore con quel fantasma, Zuhra era costretta ad essere forte, energica, potente” (Scego 2008, 396). She begins to cope with her trauma through her connection to Zuhra and prays “per essere contagiata da quella sua nuova amica”

(Scego 2008, 396). The two women begin to depend on each other emotionally and come to terms with their respective pain in the presence of one another. Despite being unaware that both her and Zuhra’s sorrow originates from a shared ancestral trauma Mar identifies her burgeoning friendship with Zuhra as akin to sisterhood. She “sentiva una buona compagnia per quella ragazza. Quasi una sorella. A volte guardandola, vedeva parte della sua vita, anche nel suo tormento vedeva parte della sua vita, sopratutto in quello strano tremore di due sere prima”

(Scego 2008, 385). The filial bond between Zuhra and Mar provides the latter with the courage to confront her own trauma.

203

While Zuhra has lost the colour red Mar is blinded by the colour white, which she associates with her dead lover Patricia. Patricia’s whiteness blinds Mar to the mistreatment that she suffers. Despite having been manipulated into aborting their child she refuses to accept that

Patricia was to blame: “Pati le faceva del male? Possibile? Lei, con quella pelle così bianca”

(Scego 2008, 32). As Gregoria Manzin highlights Mar finally identifies the spectre of Patricia as the perpetrator of her abuse while Zuhra is gently washing her hair (2014, 81). Zuhra begins to refer to Mar as her abbayo strengthening the filial bond. She explains to Mar that abbayo:

“significa sorella. È somalo. La lingua di tuo padre. Mi ha detto Miranda che tuo padre era somalo, come mia madre” (Scego 2008, 386), again pointing to the interconnectedness of character’s stories. With Zuhra by her side Mar is finally able to recognise Patricia as the culprit of her abuse. This is indicated when Mar “notò che il bianco non l’accecava più. Il fiore rosso del vestito [di Pati] si era allargato. Copriva tutta la pancia. Era forse il sangue di lei che non era riuscita a vedere?” (Scego 2008, 397). Together, the two women begin to come to terms with their respective traumas.

Chapter five analysed witnessing at the level of reading by analysing the attempt of the selected authors to engender a specific type of reading akin to witnessing. The chapter described the relationship between trauma novels and testimonial writing. It went on to outline the motivations for the selected writers authoring texts that deliberately expose Italian readers to intergenerational trauma, drawing on interviews they have given and their non-fiction. The chapter then provided a theoretical discussion of affect and witnessing at the level of reading before identifying the literary devices and stylistic features employed by the selected authors to represent and convey trauma to readers. These literary devices include directly addressing the reader in Regina, ellipses, anachrony, and repetition, and a fictional relationship between an author – Miranda and a reader – Zuhra. In Timira I analysed the inclusion of photography

204

as a stylistic feature to elicit a type of reading akin to witnessing. In chapter six, I consider the role that trauma novels can play in reconfiguring an Italian readership’s relationship with the

Italian colonial past.

205

Chapter Six – Conclusion

The mass migration to the Italian peninsula since the 1990s has prompted a belated reengagement with the colonial past in Italian literature and culture (Labanca 2015, 132).

Unfortunately, this renewed interest in the colonialism has not lead mainstream Italian authors to come to terms with the collective responsibility for their nation’s occupation of the African nations of Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Libya. I have discussed the selectiveness of colonial memory, and the way this skewed recollection of the colonial past is fuelling concerns about mass migration to the country (Triulzi 2006, 433). In particular, the advent of mass migration to Italy has nourished literary recollections of the past that risk eulogising the former Italian

Empire. The emergence of colonial memory illustrates that, far from being a pluralistic and multicultural society, Italy is still deeply invested in “forms of discrimination and exploitation

[that are] anchored to a specific colonial narration of the nation” (Ponzanesi & Polizzi 2016,

433). The relationship between the Italian public and minorities who have steadily arrived in the country has therefore been mediated by colonial memory (Labanca 2015, 134). As

Alessandro Triulzi observes, “longstanding (…) prejudices from the [colonial] past have been bequeathed to the present generation” (2006, 434). Many of the racist stereotypes of Africa and its inhabitants are used to describe immigrants arriving in the country today (Labanca 2015,

134). The tendency of post-imperialist literature to conceal the trauma caused by colonialism has left readers unable to conceive of their history and their identity differently.

Colonial memory ignores the intergenerational legacies of trauma originating from the Italian colonisation of Africa. The texts I have chosen for my research: Regina di fiori e di perle (2007) by Gabriella Ghermandi, Oltre Babilonia (2008) by Igiaba Scego and Timira: romanzo meticcio (2012) by Wu Ming 2 and Antar Mohamed contest colonial memory and the distorted recollection of the Italian colonial past it presents through their depiction of intergenerational

206

trauma in Somalia and Ethiopia. All three literary works have been associated with the genre of letteratura della migrazione due to the backgrounds of their respective authors (Coppola

2011, 124; Carroli & Gerrand 2014). The genre of letteratura della migrazione describes authors whose grandparents, parents or themselves migrated to Italy. The term migrant literature was initially considered appropriate to describe an emergent body of literature authored by writers with diverse cultural backgrounds when it was introduced in the 1990s.

However, scholars gradually began to realise the limitations of this term, especially when describing texts written by G2 authors (Merolla & Ponzanesi 2005, 4; Parati 2005, 7; Carroli

& Gerrand 2014, 207). The second generation (G2) of migrant writers who were born or educated in Italy produced markedly different texts from their predecessors. Unlike the first generation (G1), who authored largely autobiographical narratives of migration to Italy G2 authors produced complex, polyvalent texts dealing with themes such as cultural identity, dislocation, and belonging (Benelli 2013, 9), leading scholars in the field of Italian literary studies to introduce descriptors such as ‘italophone’ (Parati 2005), ‘nomad’ (Carroli & Gerrand

2010), ‘transnational’ (Sinopoli 2013), and ‘postcolonial’ (Ponzanesi 2012) to describe their works. I have proposed the terms ‘trauma novels’ to describe the selected works due to their ability to narrate and share intergenerational trauma with Italian readers. Given that the three texts analysed in this thesis continue to be consigned to the margins of Italian literary and intellectual life due to their author’s affiliation with letteratura della migrazione (Coppola

2011, 124; Carroli & Gerrand 2014) reframing them as trauma novels could facilitate greater recognition of the selected works both from readers and scholars of Italian literary studies.

‘Trauma novels’ denote texts that “convey profound loss or intense fear on individual or collective levels” (Balaev 2008, 150). The introductory chapter explained the origins of the concept of trauma in medical and scientific discourse and its migration to psychologically and

207

psychiatry in the nineteenth century, where it came to refer to a piercing of the mind (Leys

2000, 19). The concept of trauma gradually gained prominence in the realm of literary theory in the 1980s onwards after post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) appeared in the diagnostic canon of medical and psychiatric professions (Whitehead 2004, 4). In literary theory, the

Freudian model of trauma became prevalent after the publication of Cathy Caruth’s Unclaimed

Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History (1995) and Kali Tal’s Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma (1996). This model emphasised the latency of trauma meaning that it is not experienced at the time of occurrence but is relived belatedly through symptoms, such as flashbacks (Visser 2011, 273). I distinguished trauma novels, which have their basis in fiction, from testimonial writing. The latter formed the basis of Holocaust testimony and the

Latin American genre of testimonio. Distinctive features of the trauma novels include the

“shattering trope” (Balaev 2008, 150), which describes the fragmentation of a victim’s cognitive and narrative frameworks. Traumatic memories cannot be assimilated into consciousness and remain abject. They repeatedly return in the form of traumatic flashbacks

(Leys 2000, 2). In trauma novels, victims typically recall and narrate their traumatic experience to heal, which Michelle Balaev refers to as the “abreactive model” (2008, 150). By articulating their experience, victims can integrate traumatic memories into consciousness. Trauma novels immerse readers in the plight of victims, providing them with a “contemplative and experiential link” (Vickroy 2015, xi) to trauma.

Prior to the advent of mass migration to Italy, which brought colonialism back into the popular imagination of the Italian public, very few texts had depicted the Italian colonial enterprise.

Between the end of the Second World War, which effectively signaled the end of the Italian colonial enterprise (Andall & Duncan 2005, 19) and the advent of letteratura della migrazione in the 1990s, Italian works that addressed colonialism were mostly war novels such as Ennio

208

Flaiano’s Tempo di uccidere and Giuseppe Berto’s Guerra in camicia nera. These texts perpetuated many of the racial stereotypes cultivated in earlier colonial literature about Africa and its communities. As Rosetta Giuliani Caponetto observes: “Post-war literature and cinema allow the audience a chance for redemption and release from the sense of guilt for the unedifying experience of nearly 60 years in Africa” (2016, 16). The absence of texts depicting the trauma suffered by the colonised and their descendants deprived Italian readers of representations of Africa and its inhabitants that would enable them to reimagine the legacy of

Italian colonialism to incorporate the suffering of the colonised.

The depictions of the Italian colonial enterprise, which began to appear in literature from the

1990s, differed little from those present in colonial literature. Many genres in contemporary

Italian literature continued to exhibit an assemblage of traits and archetypes inherited from colonial literature despite being written after the independence of the colonies. I referred to these texts as letteratura post-imperialista, which describes a specific typology of texts written after the collapse of the Italian Empire continuing to display racist traits and archetypes inherited from colonial literature. In chapter two I discussed how Italian crime writers frequently exploit the Italian colonial past as an exciting backdrop to stage their plots. Carlo

Lucarelli’s L’ottava vibrazione, Davide Longo’s Un mattino a Irgalem, and Giorgio Ballario’s trilogy of texts – Morire è un attimo. L’indagine del maggiore Morosini nell’Eritrea italiana,

Una donna di troppo. La seconda indagine del maggiore Aldo Morosini nell’Africa Orientiale

Italiana, and Le rose di Axum. Un indagine del maggiore Morosini have opted to revive the colonial past for the pleasure of readers. These texts depict colonialism from an italocentric perspective and are not concerned with giving expression to the viewpoint of the colonised.

They tend to exoticise and eroticise African characters (Camilotti 2014, 31) and present Africa as a place of “degenerazione e rigenerazione” (Camilotti 2014, 20). Instead of challenging

209

Italian readers with uncompromising depictions of the trauma caused by Italian colonisation in

Africa, Italian crime writers have been largely opportunistic in their depiction of the former colonies as exciting backdrops for their narratives. Enrico Brizzi’s L’inattesa piega degli eventi did more to engage with the trauma of the colonised – drawing on uchronia to create an alternative reality in which Italy still maintains control of its colonies. Despite the novel approach that Brizzi takes to representing the Italian colonial experience, the text still narrates the trauma of the colonised from an italocentric perspective of an Italian narrator, Lorenzo

Pellegrini. In the genre of settler literature, written by former settlers of the colonies and their descendants, Luciana Capretti’s Ghibli (2004), Alessandro Spina’s I confini dell’ombra: In terra d’oltremare (2006), and Erminia Dell’Oro’s Asmara addio (1988) were more sympathetic to the plight of the colonised. This may be partly due to the authors’ direct exposure to the suffering of the inhabitants of the countries they have lived in – something that authors living and writing in Italy were insulated from. My analysis has suggested that trauma novels contest literature that functions as a space in which fantasies of the colonial venture into

Africa are re-enacted to satisfy the appetite of Italian readers for new and exotic settings.

Several Italian novels, including Mario Domenichelli’s Lugemalé, Ubax Cristina Ali Farah’s

Madre piccola, and Kaha Mohamed Aden’s Fra-intendimenti engaged with the violent history of the former colony of Somalia. These texts have portrayed the traumatic events of dictatorship and civil war in Somalia’s postcolonial history. They do not, however, link the traumatic events in Somalia’s postcolonial history to the trauma of Italian colonisation. Instead, the trauma novels I examined in my study represent the intergenerational legacies of trauma in the former colonies of Somalia and Ethiopia. They also illustrate that the traumatic events of colonialism, dictatorship, and civil war are interconnected via the symptoms of unresolved trauma that are passed down across generations.

210

Intergenerational trauma refers to a collective emotional and psychological injury that goes unresolved across multiple generations (Atkinson, Nelson & Atkinson 2010, 138). My textual analysis has tried to illustrate how trauma novels connect the events that have shaped the recent histories of Somalia and Ethiopia – Italian colonialism, dictatorship, and civil war – by showing the symptoms of unresolved trauma. The victims of Italian colonialism continue to exhibit the symptoms of their unresolved trauma, which they have passed on to successive generations.

The descendants of the colonised have been exposed to the trauma of the authoritarian Derg regime in Ethiopia and the dictatorship of Siad Barre and the ensuing civil war in Somalia, preventing them from processing their congenital grief. I distinguished my interpretation of intergenerational trauma from the prevailing model of contagion theory, which “indicates that a massive trauma experienced by a group in the historical past can be experienced by an individual living centuries later who shares a similar attribute of the historical group, such as sharing the same race, religion, nationality or gender” (Balaev 2008, 152). My textual analysis reveals the multiple expressions that intergenerational trauma can take in trauma novels. These included the sense of cultural bereavement typified by a perceived loss of cultural values and identity (Eisenbruch 1991, 674) that Mahlet suffers when she is unable to recover the memory of her promise to the deceased elder Yacob to act as a cantora. The anxiety around cultural identity and miscegenation felt by Isabella growing up as meticcia in fascist Italy as the daughter of an Italian father and a Somali mother represents another expression of intergenerational trauma. An anxiety that Isabella later passes on to her son Antar, who fears persecution for his Italian identity growing up under the Barre dictatorship in Somalia.

Intergenerational trauma also manifests as the chronic paternal neglect that characterises the upbringing of Elias – who is abandoned by his father Majid after the death of his mother Famey in childbirth. Elias later deserts his own daughters Zuhra and Mar, leaving them to be raised by their respective mothers Maryam and Miranda. Characters in all three texts are pushed to

211

breaking point and engage in witnessing either as trauma victims or as empathetic listeners to come to terms with their respective pasts.

Characters in the selected texts engage in the act of witnessing either as trauma victims or as empathetic listeners to come to terms with their respective pasts. In my research, witnessing refers to Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub’s concept whereby a trauma victim requires an interlocutor to act as an empathetic listener for the victim to narrate and record their experience within conscious memory. Chapter four provided a discussion of witnessing as a theoretical framework for analysing the selected texts and highlighted the role that listeners play in transforming traumatic memory into narrative form, a process I refer to as renegotiation. My analysis revealed witnessing occurring in the selected works on several levels, both textual and metatextual. The act of witnessing occurs at the level of narrative, which denotes acts of witnessing taking place between traumatised protagonists and various characters who act as empathetic listeners. In Regina, the character of Woizero Bekelech relays the story of her encounter with an Italian man Antonio to the protagonist Mahlet. Bekelech describes how

Antonio reconsidered his time spent in Ethiopia during the Italian occupation after listening to

Bekelech’s testimony of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her former employers the

Mandriolis. By acting as a listener to Bekelech, Antonio began to accommodate the suffering of the colonised into his recollection of the Italian colonial past. By recounting her testimony to the protagonist, the character of Bekelech is helping Mahlet to recover the memory of the promise she made to Yacob as a child to act as a cantora. My analysis of Regina revealed that witnessing occurs at the level of the text’s structure. Mahlet’s identity as a cantora functions as a literary device to allow for the retelling of traumatic memories of Italian colonialism. By realising her identity as a cantora Mahlet comes to recovery her own story of as a victim of the

212

Derg dictatorship. Mahlet’s own testimony as a victim of the Derg will incorporate the testimonies of the victims of colonialism, like Bekelech.

In Timira the act of witnessing occurs at the level of the narrative when Isabella travels to the small town of Stramentizzo in Northern Italy to commemorate her brother Giorgio. The protagonist encounters resistance and bigotry from the local customers she encounters in a small bar when she insists that her brother died fighting in the resistance against retreating fascist and Nazi troops. While Isabella remains unable to convince many of the customers of the bar that her brother died liberating Italy from Fascism because of the colour of his skin she finds an empathetic listener in the barista Carlo. My analysis of witnessing at the level of the narrative reveals Carlo’s reliance on racial hierarchies that privilege whiteness as a defining attribute of Italian identity to delegitimise Isabella’s version of the past. When Carlo does assume the role of an empathetic listener he begins to regret his earlier prejudice towards

Isabella and reconfigures his understanding of Italian identity. Carlo recognises the tremendous pain Isabella has gone through losing her brother.

The act of witnessing also occurs in Timira at the level of the text’s structure through the collaborative writing process adopted by co-authors Wu Ming 2 and Antar Mohamed. My examination illustrates that by acting as an empathetic listener to Isabella’s and Antar’s trauma

Wu Ming 2 came to view the collaboration from their perspective. This newfound insight into the dynamics of co-authorship prompted Wu Ming 2 and Antar Mohamed to devise a collaborative writing process that avoided an earlier method typical of partnerships in the

1990s, in which an Italian writer effectively acted as a scribe, recording and transcribing the stories of migrant writers with the intent of transforming the recordings into a narrative

(Lombardi-Diop 2005, 221). Wu Ming 2 and Antar Mohamed decided to split the writing

213

equally between them. This allowed Antar to exercise a degree of creative control over the narrative to protect his mother’s legacy.

In Oltre Babilonia, witnessing takes place in the narrative between the characters of Maryam

– a trauma victim and Zuhra – an empathetic listener. The maternal bond between mother and daughter is frayed when Maryam attempts to anesthetise herself from her trauma by turning to alcohol. Zuhra falls prey to the abuse she suffers at the hands of Aldo and blames Maryam for failing to protect her. When her best friend Howa dies unexpectedly, Maryam is forced to confide in her daughter. She tape-records her testimony for Zuhra finally revealing the traumatic secrets of her life prior to migrating to Rome.

The trauma novels I have chosen for my research empower readers to take responsibility for the colonial past. They represent and convey trauma to readers. Trauma novels serve to produce affect in the reader, that is the “visceral forces beneath, alongside, or generally other than conscious knowing, vital forces existing beyond emotion” (Seigworth & Gregg 2010, 1).

Trauma novels call upon readers to intuit the suffering of characters. Readers are likely to undergo negative affective states like distress, rage, terror and disgust” (Tomkins 2008, xv- xix) when reading about depictions of trauma. Or in the case of Timira viewing a photograph that is representative of Isabella’s trauma and visually communicates the grief she expresses over the loss of her brother Giorgio. These trauma novels draw on a series of literary devices and stylistic features to elicit a type of reading akin to witnessing, providing readers with “a firsthand carnal knowledge of victimization” (Felman & Laub 2013, 111). These strategies are enacted coherently by their authors to decolonise contemporary Italian society by inviting

Italian readers to viscerally comprehend the suffering of the colonised and their descendants.

214

Oltre Babilonia relies on literary devices including a fictional relationship between the characters of Miranda and Zuhra, which acts as a template for Italian readers. Miranda’s writing about her tortuous past in Argentina contains other literary devices such as the use of ellipses, anachrony, and repetition, which alert Zuhra and by extension an Italian reader to the presence of trauma in the narrative. Regina relies on the use of the pronoun voi to address Italian readers directly and invite them to enter into Ethiopian culture and revisit the Italian occupation from the perspective of the colonised. Documentary material, including photographs, also serves to enable Italian readers to bear witness to the trauma of the protagonist Isabella.

Future Research

I suggest that future research in the field of Italian literary studies should account for the affective dynamics that inform how colonialism is remembered. The colonial past cannot be recalled without rousing emotion. Affect is always at work, colouring Italian readers’ perceptions of their former Empire. As Angharad Stephens observes, affect can exist as

“background noise that is always already there and which erupts from time to time (…) [into]

‘dangerous and powerful passions’ and ‘extraordinary emotions’” (2016, 184). My research into trauma novels illustrate that, through Italian characters, the authors expose the nostalgia for the imperial past and the cultural and racial hierarchies it invokes. The selected trauma novels’ depictions of contemporary Italy illustrate how “positive collective memories [are] standing alongside negative subjective experiences that destabilize the rose-coloured vision of

Italian colonialism” (Caponetto 2016, 133). The Mandrioli family in Regina cling to a fantasy of the Italian colonial venture in Africa that continues to associate colonialism with notions of

European modernity and civility, ignoring the violent reality of the Italian occupation of

Ethiopia. This distorted recollection of the past stands in stark contrast to the ongoing suffering described by the victims of colonialism Mahlet encounters back in Ethiopia. In Timira the local customers Isabella encounters in the bar in Northern Italy are unsettled by the protagonist’s

215

revelations that her brother was a resistance fighter. The local customers continue to reaffirm

Italy as a “monocultural space that is both white and Catholic” (Duncan 2008, 196) to discredit

Isabella’s version of the past. The local customers’ reliance on racial hierarchies as a means of calling into question the protagonist’s testimony illustrate that colonial memory is still omnipresent in contemporary Italy. The examples I have provided indicate that when colonial memory and its “suppression of memories causing pain” (Caponetto 2016, 132) fails nostalgia spills over into an assertive, aggressive recollection of the past. Colonial memory transforms the protagonists and the traumatic memories they bring with them into figures of anguish and incertitude, who threaten the prevailing mythology around the Italian colonial enterprise that has been intensified by the arrival of migrants to the country. The emergence of colonial memory, highlights that “memory, insofar as it is affective and magical, only accommodates those facts that suits it; it nourishes recollections that may be out of focus or telescopic, global or detached, particular or symbolic” (Nora 1989, 8). Affect plays a pivotal role in commemorating sensitive, painful, and controversial histories like Italian colonialism. Since the publication of the selected texts from the mid-2000s onwards, colonial memory appears to have grown stronger fuelled by the “growth of right-wing populist, nationalist, anti- immigration, anti-asylum seeker, anti-Muslim politics” (Vieten & Ponyting 2016, 533) that has swept across Italy, Europe, and the United States.

There are signs that scholarship is beginning to account for the affective dimensions of remembering the colonial past. Recently, Graziella Parati has published Migrant Writers and

Urban Spaces in Italy (2017), a book that is “devoted to affect as represented in novels, stories and films that describe the lives of migrants in Italy (2017, 8). Parati focuses on affect in texts written by authors Amara Lakhous, Igiaba Scego, and Gabriella Kuruvilla, as well as the films of director Sergio Basso. Despite her explicit focus on migrant writers, Parati turns her attention

216

to the affective dimensions of remembering the colonial past in her study of two works by

Scego – La mia casa è dove sono and Roma negata: percorsi postcoloniali nella città. Parati argues that Scego expresses her disgust towards Italian colonialism and invites Italian readers to do the same. For Parati, reading Scego’s work “demands the sharing of feelings, including disgust, for colonialism. Such a community [of readers] shares affective values between those who define themselves as Italian and white and those who other members might hesitate to accept as Italians” (2017, 11). Parati views the sharing of negative affects as a means of bridging divides between the Italian public and minorities, entreating the former to reconsider their conception of Italian national identity. The act of feeling disgust allows Italian readers to repudiate their colonial past. Colonialism is something to be reviled – it is abject and alien from the present reality of contemporary Italy. Sara Ahmed confirms that disgust is “manifested as a distancing from some object, event or situation, and can be characterised as a rejection”

(Ahmed 2014, 85). For Parati, a shared sense of community and identity is forged by driving out the ‘badness’ of the colonial past by being sickened by it.

The trauma novels I have chosen for this research illustrate how literature is playing a role in reshaping the affective relationship Italian readers have with their colonial past. As Michael

Richardson suggests, “literature offers no salvation [from trauma], but it can and must deepen our knowing and feeling” (2016, 24) of traumatic events. The trauma novels entreat Italian readers to reflect on their colonial past on both a critical and embodied level. They adopt specific strategies to ensure that readers come to understand the troubled histories of two former colonies – Somalia and Ethiopia – on a visceral as well as cognitive level. Italian readers may experience moments of disquiet when reading about the painful histories of the former colonies. Far from being unproductive, experiencing these negative feelings can have a restorative function. Ahmed argues that the feeling of negative affect, like disgust and shame,

217

can lead to a reclamation of a history and an identity that are perceived to be wrong and unjust.

The feeling of negative affect “can be a mechanism for reconciliation as self-reconciliation, in which the ‘wrong’ that is committed provides the grounds for claiming national identity, for restoring a pride that is threatened in the moment of recognition, and then regained in the capacity to bear witness” (Ahmed 2014, 109) to intergenerational trauma. Colonial memory and its “fabrication of the past that evokes only unproblematic memories rather than an attempt to fully recover the past in an effort to understand its impact on the present” (Caponetto 2016,

134). Trauma novels provide a means of transcending colonial memory, allowing Italian readers to comprehend and accept their past in all its complexity.

218

Bibliography

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. London: Heinemann, 1958. Print.

Achebe, Chinua. No Longer at Ease. London: Heinemann, 1963. Print.

Achebe, Chinua. Arrow of God. London: Heinemann, 1964. Print.

Adebago, Adekeye. “In Search of Warlords: Hegemonic Peacekeeping in Liberia and Somalia.”

International Peacekeeping 10:4 (2003): 62-81. Print.

Aden, Kaha, Mohamed. Fra-intendimenti. Rome: Nottetempo, 2010. Print.

Ahmed, Sara. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014. Print.

Akhtar, Salman. Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. London: Karmac, 2009. Print.

Alexander, Jeffrey, C. The Meaning of a Social Life: A Cultural Sociology. New York: Oxford

University Press, 2003. Print.

Allen, Beverly, and Mary Russo, eds. Revisioning Italy: National Identity and Global Culture.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Print.

Alù, Giorgia, and Nancy Pedri. “Photo-Literary Encounters in Italy.” Enlightening Encounters:

Photography in Italian Literature. eds. Giorgia Alù and Nancy Pedri. Toronto: University of

Toronto Press, 2015. 3-24. Print.

Amici, Marco. “La narrazione come mitopoiesi secondo Wu Ming.” Bollettino di Italianistica. Rivista

di critica, storia letteraria, filologia e linguistica.” 1(2006): 1-18. Print.

Andall, Jacqueline, and Derek Duncan, eds. Italian Colonialism: Legacy and Memory. Oxford: Peter

Lang, 2005. Print.

“Antar Mohamed Marincola.” Enciclopedia de Estudios Afroeuropeos. Web. 1 April. 2014.

Apfelbaum, Erika. “The Dread: An Essay on Communication Across Cultural Boundaries.”

International Journal of Critical Psychology 4(2001): 19-35. Print.

219

Assmann, Aleida. “Memories of Post-imperial Nations.” Memories of Post-imperial Nations: The

Aftermath of Decolonization 1945-2013. ed. Dietmar Rothermund. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2015.171-181. Print.

Atkinson, Judy., Jeff Nelson, and Caroline Atkinson. “Trauma, Transgenerational Transfer and Effects

on Community Wellbeing.” Working Together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental

Health and Wellbeing Principles and Practice. eds. Purdie, Nola., Pat Dudgeon, and Roz.

Walker. Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2010. 135-144. Print.

Auerhahn, Nannette, and Dori Laub. “Holocaust Testimony.” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 5:4

(1990): 447-462. Print.

Auerhahn, Nannette, and Dori Laub. “Intergenerational Memory of the Holocaust.” International

Handbook of Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma. ed. Yael. Danieli. New York: Plenum

Press, 1998. 21-43. Print.

Bal, Mike., Jonathan Crewe, and Leo Spitzer. eds. Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present.

London: University Press of New England. 1999. Print.

Balaev, Michelle. “Trends in Literary Trauma Theory.” Mosaic 41.2 (2008): 149-165. Print.

Balaev, Michelle. “Literary Trauma Theory Reconsidered.” Contemporary Approaches in Literary

Trauma Theory. ed. Michelle Balaev. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Print.

Ballario, Giorgio. Morire è un attimo: L’indagine del maggiore Aldo Morosini nell’Eritrea italiana.

Turin: Edizioni Angolo Manzoni, 2008. Print.

Ballario, Giorgio. Una donna di troppo: La seconda indagine del maggiore Also Morosini nell’Africa

italiana. Turin: Edizioni Angolo Manzoni, 2009. Print.

Ballario, Giorgio. Le rose di Axum: Un indagine del maggiore Morosini. Milan: Hobby & Work

Publishing, 2012. Print.

Barbarulli, Clotilde. Scrittrici migranti: la lingua, il caos, una stella. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2010. Print.

220

Barrera, Giulia. “Patrilinearity, Race, and Identity: The Upbringing of Italo-Eritreans during Italian

Colonialism.” Italian Colonialism. eds. Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Mia Fuller. New York: Palgrave

Macmillan. 96-121. Print.

Barthes, R. Camera lucida: Reflections on Photography. Trans. Richard Howe. New York: Hill and

Wang, 1981. Print.

Bassani, Giorgio. Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini. Turni: Einaudi, 1962. Print.

Benelli, Elena. “Migration discourses in Italy.” Conserveries mémorielles 13 (2013). Web. 16 April

2013: http://cm.revues.org/1419

Ben-Ghiat, Ruth. Fascist Modernities: Italy 1922-1945. Berkeley: University of California, 2001.

Print.

Bennett, Jill. Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma, and Contemporary Art. Stanford: Stanford University

Press, 2005. Print.

Benvenuti, Giuliana, and Remo Ceserani. La letteratura nell’età globale. Bologna: il Mulino, 2012.

Print.

Berhe, Aregawi. “Revisiting Resistance in Italian-Occupied Ethiopia: The Patriots’ Movement (1936-

1941) and the Redefinition of Post-War Ethiopia.” Rethinking Resistance: Revolt and Violence

in African History. eds. Mirjam de Brukin and Klass van Walraven. Brill: Leiden, 2003. 88-

113. Print.

Berto, Giuseppe. Guerra in camicia nera. Milan: Garzanti, 1967. Print.

Beverley, John. Testimonio: On the Politics of Truth. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,

2004. Print.

Bond, Emma. “Towards a Trans-national Turn in Italian Studies?” Italian Studies 69.3 (2014): 415-

424. Print.

Bos, Pascale. “Positionality and Postmemory in Scholarship on the Holocaust.” Women in German

Yearbook 19 (2003): 50-74. Print.

221

Boswell, Mathew. “Reading Holocaust Poetry: Genre, Authority and Identification.” The Future of

Memory. ed. Richard Crownshaw. New York Berhahn Books, 2010. Print.

Bouchane, Mohamed. Chiamatemi Alì. eds. Carla Di Girolamo and Daniele Miccione. Milan:

Leonardo editore, 1991. Print.

Brennan, Teresa. The Transmission of Affect. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004. Print.

Brenneis, Sarah. Genre Fusion: A New Approach to History, Fiction, and Memory in Contemporary

Spain. Indiana University Press, 2014. Print.

Brioni, Simone. “Pratiche ‘meticce’: narrare il colonialismo italiano a ‘più mani’”. Postcoloniale

Italiano: Tra letteratura e storia. ed. Franca Sinopoli. Aprilia: Novalogos, 2013. Print.

Brioni, Simone. 2013, “Intervista con Igiaba Scego”. Web. July 11 2016.

Brioni, Simone. 2016, “‘Igiaba Scego’, Institute of Modern Languages Research”. Web. June 6 2016.

writing/languages/italian/igiaba-scego>

Brioni, Simone. “Fantahistorical vs. Fantafascist Epic: ‘Contemporary’ Alternative Italian Colonial

Histories.” Science Fiction Studies 42.2 (2015): 305-321. Print.

Brioni, Simone. “Migrant Stories and Italian Colonialism: A Report on Two Documentaries.” The

Italianist 33.2(2013): 321-324. Print.

Brioni, Simone. The Somali within: Language, Race and Belonging in ‘Minor’ Italian Literature.

Cambridge: Modern Humanities Research Association and Maney Publishing, 2015. Print.

Brison, Susan. “Trauma Narratives and Remaking of the Self.” Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the

Present. eds. Mieke Bal., Jonathon Crewe, and Leo Spitzer. London: University Press of New

England. 1999. 39-55. Print.

Brizzi, Enrico. L’inattesa piega degli eventi. Milan: Baldini Castoldi Dalai, 2008. Print.

Brizzi, Enrico. La nostra guerra. Milan: Baldini Castoldi Dalai, 2009. Print.

222

Brizzi, Enrico. Lorenzo Pellegrini e le donne. San Lazzaro di Savenna: Italica. 2012. Print.

Broderick, Mick, and Antonio Traverso. Interrogating Trauma: Collective Suffering in Global Arts

and Media. London: Routledge. 2011. Print.

Bullaro, Russo, Grace, and Elena Benelli, eds. Shifting and Shaping a National Identity: Transnational

Writers and Pluriculturalism in Italy Today. Leicestershire: Troubador Publishing, 2014. Print.

Burdett, Charles. “Colonial Associations and the Memory of Italian East Africa”. Italian Colonialism:

Legacy and Memory. eds. Jacqueline Andall and Derek Duncan. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2005.

165-217. Print.

Burns, Jennifer. “Borders within the Text: Authorship, Collaboration and Mediation in Writing in

Italian by Immigrants.” ed. Jennier Burns and Loredana Polezzi. Borderlines, Migrazione e

identità nel Novecento, Quaderni sull’emigrazione. no.10. Isernia: Cosmo Iannone Editore.

2003. 387-393. Print.

Burns, Jennifer. “Frontiere nel testo: autori, collaborazioni e mediazioni nella scrittura italofona della

migrazione.” eds. Jennifer Burns and Loredana Polezzi. Borderlines, Migrazione e identità nel

Novecento, Quaderni sull’emigrazione. no.10. Isernia: Cosmo Iannone Editore. 2003. 203-213.

Print.

Burns, Jennier. “Outside Voices within: Immigration Literature in Italian.” Trends in Contemporary

Italian Narrative 1890-2007. eds. Ania Gillian and Ann Hallamore Caesar. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2007. 136-155. Print.

Butler, Jean, Kelly. Witnessing Australian Stories: History, Testimony, and Memory in Contemporary

Culture. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2013. Print.

Calavita, Kitty. “Italy: Economic Realties, Political Fictions and Policy Failures.” Controlling

Immigration: A Global Perspective, eds. James F. Hollifield., Philip L. Martin and Pia

Orrenius. California: Stanford University Press, 2004. 345-377. Print.

Camilleri, Andrea. La presa di Macallè. Palermo: Sellerio, 2003. Print.

223

Camilleri, Andrea. Il nipote del Negus. Palermo: Sellerio, 2010. Print.

Camilotti, Silvia. Cartoline d’Africa: Le colonie italiane nelle rappresentazioni letterarie. Venice:

Edizioni Ca’Foscari, 2014. Print.

Campbell, Jan. Film and Cinema Spectatorship Melodrama and Mimesis. Oxford: Polity Press, 2005.

Print.

Caponetto, Rosetta Giuliana. Fascist Hybridities: Representations of Racial Mixing and Diaspora

Cultures under Mussolini. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Print.

Capretti, Lucianna. Ghibli. Milan: Rizzoli, 2004. Print.

Carroli, Piera. “Oltre Babilonia? Postcolonial Female Trajectories towards Nomadic Subjectivity.”

Italian Studies 65.2 (2010): 204-218. Print.

Carroli, Piera, and Vivian Gerrand. “Italian Literature Becomes Nomad: Metamorphosis from

Within/Without.” Shifting and Shaping a National Identity: Transnational Writers and

Pluriculturalism in Italy Today. eds. Grace Russo Bullaro and Elena Benelli. Leicestershire:

Troubador Publishing, 2014. 203-223. Print.

Carroli, Piera, and Vivian Gerrand. “La mia casa è dove sono: Subjects and Narratives beyond

National Borders.” Scritture migranti 5(2011): 81-104. Print.

Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Baltimore: John Hopkins

University Press, 1996. Print.

Chandra, Viola. Media Chiara e noccioline. Rome: Derive Approdi, 2001. Print.

Chlora, Nassera. Volevo diventare bianca. ed. Alessandra Atti di Sarro. Rome: Edizioni e/o. 1993.

Print.

Clò, Clarissa. “African Queens and Italian History: The Cultural Politics of Memory and Resistance

in Teatro delle Albe’s Lunga vita all’albero and Gabriella Ghermandi’s Regina di fiori e di

perle.” Researching in African Literatures 41. 4 (2010): 26-42. Print.

224

Clò, Clarissa. “Out of the Shadow: Gabriella Ghermandi’s Ethiopian Italian Performances. Reviewed

Work(s): All’ombra dei rami sfacciati carichi di fiori rosso vermiglio by Gabriella Ghermandi;

Regina di fiori e di perle by Gabriella Ghermandi.” Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive

Scholarship and Pedagogy 20: 1 (2009): 141-154. Print.

Clò, Clarissa. “Collective Transmedia Storytelling from Below: Timira and the New Italian Epic.”

Encounters with the Real in Contemporary Italian Literature and Cinema, 2009. eds. Loredana

Di Matino and Pasquale Verdiccio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 97-119. Print.

Clough, Patricia Ticineto, and Jean Halley. eds. The Affective Turn: Theorising the Social. Durham:

Duke University Press, 2007. Print.

Cohen, Anthony. The Symbolic Construction of Community. New York: Routledge, 1995. Print.

Colletti, Vittoro. Romanzo mondo: La letteratura nel villaggio globale. Bologna: Il mulino, 2011.

Print.

Comberiati, Daniele. La quarta sponda: Scrittrici in viaggio dall’Africa coloniale all’Italia di oggi.

Rome: Caravan edizioni, 2011. Print.

Comberiati, Daniele. “Riscrivere la storia: Modalità di rappresentazione del colonialismo italiano in

Albania.” Incontri 28.1 (2013): 25-33. Print.

Comberiati, Daniele. “Una diaspora infinita: l’ebraismo narrative di Erminia Dell’Oro.” Memoria

collettiva e memoria privata: Il ricordo della Shoah come politica sociale. Lucamente,

Stefania., et al. Utrecht: Igitur Utrecht Publishing, 2008. 49-61. Print.

Combi, Mariella, Luigi Marinella and Barbara Ronchetti, eds. La patria degli altri. Rome: Sapienza

Università editrice, 2013. Print.

Comencini, Cristina. La bestia nel cuore. Milan: Feltrinelli, 2004. Print.

Connerton, Paul. How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Print.

Consonni, Manuela. “Primo Levi, Robert Antelme, and the Body of Muselmann.” Partial Answers:

Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 7.2(2009): 243-259. Print.

225

Coppola, Manuela. “‘Rented Spaces’ Italian Postcolonial Literature.” Social Identities 17.1 (2011):

121-135. Print.

Coppola, Manuela, et al. “Women, Migration and Precarity.” Feminist Review 87.1 (2007): 94-103.

Print.

Costa, Carlo, and Lorenzo Teodonio. Razza partigiana: storia di Giorgio Marincola (1923-1945).

Rome: Iacobelli edizioni, 2008. Print.

Craps, Stef. Postcolonial Witnessing: Trauma Out of Bounds. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Print.

Dagne, Ted. “Somalia: Current Conditions and Prospects for a Lasting Peace.” Library of Congress

Washington DC Congressional Research Service. 2010: 1-27. Print.

Dagnino, Arianna. “Re-Discovering Alessandro Spina’s Transculture/ality in the Young Maronite.”

Humanities 5.42 (2016): 1-11. Print.

D’Aleo, Claudio. 2011, “Chiamatemi Alì- Mohamed Bouchane”. Web. January 26 2017.

Danieli, Yael. “Introduction: History and Conceptual Foundations.” International Handbook of

Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma. eds. Yael Danieli. New York: Plenum Press, 1998. 1-

21. Print.

Dean-Cox, Sharon. “The Translator as Secondary Witnessing: Mediating Memory in Antelme’s

L’espèce humaine.” Translation Studies 6.3 (2013): 1-20. Print. de Caldas Brito, Christiana. Amanda Olinda Azzurra e le altre. Rome: Lilith edizioni, 1998. Print.

Dekel, Rachel, and Hadass Goldblatt. “Is there Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma? The Case

of Combat Veterans’ Children.” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 78.3 (2008): 281-289.

Print.

Derrida, Jacque. Of hospitality. Trans. Rachel Bowlby. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000.

Print.

226

Dell’Oro, Erminia. Asmara addio. Pordenone: Edizioni studio tesi, 1988. Print.

Dell’Oro, Erminia. L’abbandono: una storia eritrea. Turin: Einaudi, 1991. Print.

Dell’Oro, Erminia. Il fiore di Merara. Milan: Baldini & Castoldi, 1994. Print.

Dell’Oro, Erminia. La gola del diavolo. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1999. Print.

Dell’Oro, Erminia. Dall’altra parte del mare. Casale Monferrato: Piemme Junior, 2005. Print.

Dell’Oro, Erminia. Vedere ogni notte le stelle. San Cesario di Lecce: Manni, 2010. Print.

Dell’Oro, Erminia. Il mare davanti. Milan: Piemme, 2016. Print. de Loudes Jesus, M. Racordai, Vengo da un’isola di Capo Vedere. Rome: Sinnos, 1996. Print.

Del Boca, Angelo. La nostra Africa: Nel racconto di cinquanta italiani che l’hanno percorsa,

esplorata e amata. Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 2003. Print.

Del Boca, Angelo. Gli italiani in Africa orientale. Rome: Laterza, 1976. Print.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. Kafka: toward a minor literature. Trans. Polan, Dana.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Print.

De Vivo, Barabara. “Alla ricerca della memoria perduta. Contro-memorie della colonizzazione italiana

in Etiopia nel romanzo Regina di fiori e di perle di Gabriella Ghermandi.” Postcoloniale

italiano. ed. Franca Sinopoli. Rome: Novalogos. 2013. 120-147. Print.

Di Maio, Alessandra. “Salah Methnani’s Immigrato: Portrait of a Migrant as a Young Man.”

Expressions maghrébines 11.2(2012): 89-106. Print.

Doctor, Ronald., Ada P. Kahn, and Christine Adamec. The Encyclopedia of Phobias, Fears, and

Anxieties. 3rd ed. New York: Facts on File. 2008. Print.

Domenichelli, Mario. Lugemalé. Florence: Edizioni Polistampa, 2005. Print.

Doninelli, Luca. Tornavamo dal mare. Milan: Garzanti, 2004. Print.

Duncan, Derek. “Assimilazione culturale e diritti dell’omosessualità in ‘Immigrato’ di Fortunato e

Mathani.” eds. Jennifer Burns and Loredana Polezzi. Borderlines, Migrazione e identità nel

Novecento, Quaderni sull’emigrazione. no.10. Isernia: Cosmo Iannone Editore. 2003. 193-203.

227

Duncan, Derek. “Italy’s Postcolonial Cinema and its Histories of Representations.” Italian Studies

63:2 (2008): 195-211. Print.

Dunnage, Jonathan. “Perpetrator Memory and Memories about Perpetrators.” Memory Studies 3.2

(2010): 91-94. Print.

Eisenbruch, Maurice. “From Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to Cultural Bereavement: Diagnosis of

Southeast Asian refugees.” Social Science and Medicine 33:6 (1991): 673-680. Print.

Fabris, Federico. 2010, “Gabriella Ghermandi”. Web. 6 February 2017. http://www.encyclopediaofafroeuropeanstudies.eu/encyclopedia/gabriella-ghermandi/

Farah, Ubax, Cristina, Ali. Madre piccola. Milan: Frassinelli, 2007. Print.

Farah, Ubax, Cristina, Ali. Il comandante del fiume. Rome: 66thand2nd. 2014. Print.

Farnetti, Bertella. Paolo. “Italy’s Colonial Past between Private Memories and Collective Amnesia”.

Colonialism and National Identity. eds. Paolo Beterlla Farnetti, and Cecilia Dau Novelli.

Newcastle: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 212-227. Print.

Fazel, Ramzanali, Shirin. Lontano da Mogadiscio. Rome: Datanews. 1994. Print.

Felman, Shoshana, and Dori Laub. Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and

History. New York: Routledge, 2013. Print.

Flaiano, Ennio. Tempo di uccidere. Milan: Rizzoli, 1989. Print.

Freud, Sigmund, and Joseph Breuer. Studies in Hysteria. Trans. Brill, A. New York: Nervous and

Mental Diseas Publishers. 1936. Print.

Freud, Sigmund. “The Aetiology of Hysteria’. The Standard Edition of the Complete Works of

Sigmund Freud. 25. London: Hogarth Press, 1956. Print.

Gangbo, Jadelin, Mabiala. Verso la notte Bakogna. L’Aquila: Portofranco, 1999. Print.

Gangbo, Jadelin, Mabiala. Rometta e Giulieo. Milan: Feltrinelli, 2001. Print.

Ganteau, Jean Michelle, and Susana Onega. “Introduction: Performing the Void: Liminality and the

Ethics of Form in Contemporary Trauma Narratives.” Contemporary Trauma Narratives:

228

Liminality and the Ethics of Form. eds. Jean Michelle Ganteau and Susana Onega. Hoboken:

Taylor and Francis, 2014. 1-21. Print.

Gebru, Tareke. Ethiopian Revolution: War in the Horn of Africa. New Haven: Yale University Press,

2009. Print.

Gerrand, Vivian. “Mending Mogadishu: Somali Belonging in the Twentieth Century.” Arena

Magazine 139 (2015): 22-25. Print.

Gerrand, Vivian. “Representing Somali Resettlement in Italy: The Writing of Ubax Cristina Ali Farah

and Igiaba Scego.” Studi d’italianistica nell’Africa australe. 21.1-2 (2008): 279-295. Print.

Gerrand, Vivian. “Mending Mogadishu: Somali Belonging in the Twentieth Century.” Arena

Magazine 139 (2016): 22-25. Print.

Gerrig, Richard. Experiencing Narrative Worlds: On the Psychological Activities of Reading. New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Print.

Ghazy, Randa. Oggi forse non ammazzo nessuno: Storie di una giovane musulmana stranamente non

terrorista. Milan: Fabbri editore, 2007. Print.

Ghazy, Randa. Sognando Palestina. Milan: Fabbri, 2002. Print.

Ghermandi, Gabriella. Regina di fiore e di perle. Rome: Donzelli editore, 2007. Print.

Ghermandi, Gabriella. “Il telefono del quartiere.” Parole oltre i confini. ed. Roberta Sangiorgi and

Alessandro Ramberti, 73-82. Print.

Ghermandi, Gabriella. “Un Canto per Mamma Heaven.” Kúmá: Creolizzare l’Europa 9/10 (2005).

Web. 20 October 2017.

< http://www.gabriella-ghermandi.it/writing/data/docs/mamma_heaven.pdf >

Ghermandi, Gabriella. “Il pranzo pasquale.” EGhibli 14(2006). Web. 20 October 2017.

Gibbs, Anna. 2002, “Contagious Feelings: Pauline Hanson and the Epidemiology of Affect”. Web.

20 October 2017.

229

Gilmore, Leigh. The Limits of Autobiography: Trauma and Tesimony. Ithaca: Cornell University Press,

2001. Print.

González-Ruibal, Alfredo. “Fascist Colonialism: The Archaeology of Italian Outposts in Western

Ethiopia (1936-41).” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 14.4 (2010): 547-574.

Print.

Goodman, Nancy and Marilyn Meyers. eds. The Power of Witnessing: Reflections, Reverberations

and Traces of the Holocaust: Trauma, Psychoanalysis and the Living Mind. New York:

Routledge. 2012, Print.

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

Gnisci, Armando., Franca Sinopoli, and Nora Moll. La letteratura nel XX1 secolo. Milan: Mondadori,

2010. Print.

Greene, Shelleen. Equivocal Subjects: Between Italy and Africa - Constructions of Racial and National

Identity in the Italian Cinema. New York: Continuum, 2012. Print.

Gregg, Melissa, and Gregory J. Seigworth. The Affect Theory Reader. Durham: Duke University Press.

2010. Print.

Gross, Andrew, and Michael J. Hoffman. “Memory, Authority, and Identity: Holocaust Studies in

Light of the Wilkomirski Debate.” Biography 27.1 (2004): 25-47. Print.

Hajdari, Gezim. Ombra di cane/Hije qeni. Frosinone: Dismisura, 1993. Print.

Hajdari, Gezim. Sassi controvento/Gure kundereres. Milan: Laboratiorio delle Arti, 1995. Print.

Halbwachs, Maurice. On Collective Memory. Trans. Lewis Coser. Chicago: Chicago University Press,

1992. Print.

Hawthorne, Camilla. 2015, “Igiaba Scego Rewrites the Black Mediterranean”. Web. June 6 2016.

mediterranean/>

230

Hirsch, Marriane. “The Generation of Postmemory.” Poetics Today 29.1 (2008): 103-128. Print.

Hirsch, Marriane. Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory. Massachusetts: Harvard

University Press, 1997. Print.

Hirsch, Marriane. “Past Lives: Postmemories in Exile.” Poetics Today 17.4 (1996): 659-686. Print.

Hirsch, Marriane. “Surviving Images: Holocaust Photographs and the Work of Postmemory.” The Yale

Journal of Criticism 14.1 (2001): 5-37. Print.

Hirsch, Marriane, and Leo Spitzer. “The Witness in the Archive: Holocaust Studies/Memory Studies.”

Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates. eds. Susannah Radstone and Bill Schwarz. New York:

Fordham University Press. 2010. 390-405. Print.

Hoffman, Eva. After such Knowledge: Memory, History, and the Legacy of the Holocaust. New York:

Public Affairs, 2004. Print.

Jilovsky, Esther. Remembering the Holocaust: Generations, Witnessing and Place. London:

Bloomsbury, 2015. Print.

Judt, Tony. “The Past Is Another Country: Myth and Memory in Postwar Europe.” Daedalus

21.4 (1992): 83-118. Print.

Kacandes, Irene. “Narrative witnessing as Memory Work: Reading Gertrud Kolmar’s A Jewish

Mother.” Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present. eds. Mieke Bal., Jonathon Crewe,

and Leo Spritzer. London: University Press of New England. 1999. 55-71. Print.

Kacandes, Irene. Talk Fiction: Literature and the Talk Explosion. Lincoln: University of Nebraska

Press, 2001. Print.

Kane, Cheikh, Hamidou, A. L’aventure ambiguë. Paris: Juillard, 1961. Print.

Kellermann, Natan. “Transmission of Holocaust Trauma. An Integrative View.” Psychiatry:

Interpersonal and Biological 64s.3 (2001): 256-267. Print.

Kennedy, Rosanne. “Subversive Witnessing: Mediating Indigenous Testimony in Australian Cultural

and Legal Institutions.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 36.1&2(2008): 58-75. Print.

231

Khouma, Pap, and Oreste Pivetta. Io, venditore di elefanti. Milan: Dalai editore, 1990. Print.

Kibreab, Gaim. Eritrea: A Dream Deferred. Oxford: James Currey, 2009. Print.

Kirmayer, Lawrence. J. “Landscapes of Memory: Trauma, Narrative, and Dissociation.” Tense Past:

Cultural Essays in Trauma and Memory. ed. Michael Lambeck and Paul Antze. New York:

Routledge, 1996. 173-197. Print.

Klein-Rowland, Dani, and Rosemary Dunlop. “The Transmission of Trauma Across Generations:

Identification with Parental Trauma in Children of Holocaust Survivors.” Australian and New

Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 31.3 (1997) 358-369. Print.

Kopf, Marina. “Trauma, Narrative and the Art of Witnessing.” Slavery, in Art and Literature:

Approaches to Trauma, Memory and Visuality. eds. Birgit Haehnel, B and Melanie Ulz. Berlin:

Frank & Timme, 2009. 40-58. Print.

Kubati, Ron. Venti di Libertà e Gemiti di Dolore. ed. Renato Brucoli. Bari: Edizioni Insieme, 1991.

Print.

Labanca, Nicola. “Post-colonial Italy: The Case of a Small and belated Empire: From Strong Emotions

to Bigger Problems.” Memories of Post-imperial Nations: The Aftermath of Decolonization

1945-2013. ed. Dietmar Rothermund. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 120-150.

Print.

Labanca, Nicola. “Colonial Rule, Colonial Repression and War Crimes in the Italian Colonies.”

Journal of Modern Italian Studies 9.3 (2004): 300-313. Print.

LaCapra, Dominik. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press,

2001. Print.

Lakhous, Amara. Le cimici e il pirata. Rome: Arlem. 1999. Print.

Landsberg, Alison. “America, the Holocaust, and the Mass Culture of Memory: Toward a Radical

Politics of Empathy.” New German Critique: An Interdisciplinary Journal of German Studies

71 (1997): 63-87. Print.

232

Laplanche, Jean, and Jean-Betrand Pontalis. The Language of Psychoanalysis. Trans. Lagache, Daniel.

London: Hogarth Press Ltd, 1973. Print.

Laub, Dori. “Bearing Witness, or the Vicissitudes of Listening”. Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in

Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History. eds. Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub. New York:

Routledge, 2013. 57-75. Print.

Lea, David, and Annamarie Rowe. A Political Chronology of Africa. London: Europa Publications,

2011. Print.

Lejeune, Phillipe. On Autobiography. Trans. Katherine Leary. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota

Press, 1989. Print.

Levi, Primo. If This is a Man. Trans. Woolf, Stuart. London: Orion Press, 1959. Print.

Levine, Michael. The Belated Witness: Literature, Testimony and the Question of Holocaust Survival.

Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006. Print.

Lewis, Alison. “Foiling the Censor: Reading and Transference as Feminist Strategies in the Works of

Christa Wolf, Irmtraud Morgner, and Christa Moog.” The German Quaterly 66.3(1993): 372-

386. Print.

Lewis, I.M. A Modern History of the Somali: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa. Oxford: James

Currey Ltd. 2002. Print.

Leys, Ruth. Trauma: A Genealogy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Print.

Locatelli, Francesca. “Migration to the Colonies and Building the Myth of ‘Italiani brava gente’: the

Rise, Demise, and Legacy of Italian Settler Colonialism.” Italian Mobilities. eds. Ruth Ben-

Ghiat and Stephanie Malia Hom. London: Routledge, 2016. 133-152. Print.

Lombardi-Diop, Cristina. “Selling/Storytelling: African Autobiografies in Italy.” Italian Colonialism:

Legacy and Memory. eds. Jacqueline Andall and Derek Duncan. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2005.

217-239. Print.

233

Lombardi-Diop, Cristina, and Caterina Romeo. Postcolonial Italy: Challenging National

Homogeneity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Print.

Lombardi-Diop, Cristina. Afterword. Regina di fiori e di perle. Gabriella Ghermandi. Rome: Donzelli

editore, 2007. 255-264. Print.

Longo, Davide. Un mattino a Irgalem. Milan: Marcos y Marcos, 2011. Print.

Lori, Laura. Inchiostro d’Africa: La letterature postcoloniale somala fra diaspora e identità. Verona:

Ombre Corte, 2013. Print.

Lucarelli, Carlo. L’ottava vibrazione. Turin: Einaudi, 2008. Print.

Lucarelli, Carlo. Albergo Italia. Turin: Einaudi, 2014. Print.

Lucarelli, Carlo. Il tempo delle iene. Turin: Einaudi, 2015. Print.

Lukacher, Ned. Primal Scenes: Literature, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis. Ithaca: Cornell University

Press, 1986. Print.

Maclean, Pam. “Holocaust testimony: Testimonio? An exploration.” Testifying to the Holocaust

(2008): 29-57. Print.

Mai Tacli. Acqua di fonte fra le rocce: antologia di scrittori asmarini. Florence: Mai Tacli, 1996.

Print.

Maher, Vanessa. “Immigration and Social Identities”. Italian Cultural Studies: An Introduction. eds.

David Forgacs and Robert Lumley. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. 160-177. Print.

Manzin, Gregoria. “Colonising the Novel: Voice and Chorality in Ghermandi’s Regina di fiori e di

perle. Moving beyond to Redefine the Boundaries of Italian Literature.” Spunti e ricerche 26

(2011): 108-125. Print.

Manzin, Gregoria. “Engendering Ontological Cartographies: Igiaba Scego’s Reading of Otherness.”

Shifting and Shaping a National Identity: Transnational Writers and Pluriculturalism in Italy

Today. eds. Grace Russo Bullaro and Elena Benelli. Leicestershire: Troubador Publishing,

2014. 63-85. Print.

234

Massumi, Brian. Notes on the Translation and Acknowledgements. A Thousand Plateaus. Deleuze,

Gilles, and Felix Guattari. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1987, xvii-xxi. Print.

Massumi, Brian. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham: Duke University

Press, 2002. Print.

Mauceri Cristina. “Igiaba Scego: La seconda generazione di autori transnazionali.” E-ghibli 1.4

(2004). Print.

Mazzantini, Margaret. Non ti muovere. Milan: Mondadori, 2001. Print.

McDermott, Sinead. “The Ethics of Postmemory on Bobbie Ann Mason’s ‘In Country’.” The Journal

of the Midwest Modern Language Association 39.2 (2006): 5-21. Print.

McMichael, Celia. “Everywhere is Allah’s Place: Islam and the Everyday Life of Somali Women in

Melbourne, Australia.” Journal of Refugee Studies 15.2 (2002): 171-188. Print.

Melitti, Mohsen. I bambini delle rose. Rome: Edizioni lavoro, 1995. Print.

Melitti, Mohsen. Pantanella: Canto Lungo la strada. Rome: Edizioni lavoro, 1992. Print.

Mellino, Miguel. Cittadinanze postcoloniali: appartenenza e razzismo in Europa e in Italia. Rome:

Carocci, 2012. Print.

Merolla, Daniela, and Sandra Ponzanesi. Migrant Cartographies: New Cultural and Literary Spaces

in Post-Colonial Europe (After the Empire). Lanham: Lexington Books, 2005. Print.

Methnani, Salah, and Mario Fortunato Immigrato. Milan: Bompiani, 1990. Print.

Mohamed, Antar. “Sleeplighter (L’uomo dal sonno leggero).”Casamondi: Racconti interculturali. ed.

Roberto Sangiorgi. Bologna: Eks&Tra Editore, 2011. 19-22. Print.

Molino, Michael. “Traumatic Memory and Narrative Isolation in Ishiguro’s A Pale View of the Hills.”

Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 53.4 (2012): 322-336. Print.

Morace, Rosanna. Letteratura- mondo italiana. Pisa: Edizioni ETS. 2012. Print.

Morante, Elsa. La storia. Turin: Einaudi, 1974. Print.

235

Morone, Antonio. “The Trouble with Italy’s Post-colonial Memory: Affile celebrates Rodolfo

Graziani, the ‘Butcher of Ethiopia’.” Annual Review of Islam in Africa 11 (2012): 25-29. Print.

Mubiayi, Ingy. “Documenti, prego.” Pecore nere. eds. Flavia Capitani and Emanuele Coen. Rome:

Editori Laterza, 2005. 97-107. Print.

Mubiayi, Ingy. “Concorso.” Pecore nere. eds. Flavia Capitani and Emanuele Coen. Rome: Editori

Laterza, 2005. 109-138. Print.

Neu, Stefanie. “Le ‘roman métisse’ Timira (2013) de Antar Mohamed et Wu Ming 2: le colonialisme

en Italie raconté dans une synthèse entre récit fictionnel et factual.” Cahier de Narrotologie 26

(2014): 2-12. Print.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo. Weep Not, Child. London: Heinemann. 1964. Print.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo. The River Between. London: Heinemann. 1965. Print.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo. A Grain of Wheat. London: Heinemann, 1968. Print.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo. Petals of Blood. London: Heinemann, 1977. Print.

Nora, Pierre. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations 26 (1989): 7-

24 Print.

Novati, Calchi Paolo, G. L’Africa d’Italia. Milan: Carocci, 2012. Print.

Orlandi, Daniela. “Ennio Flaiano (1910-1972)”. Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies: A-J. eds.

Gaetana Marrone., Paolo Puppa, and Luca Somigli. New York: Routledge, 2007. 732-734. Print.

Orton, Marie. “Telling Uneasiness: Second Generation Migrant Writers in Italy and the Failures of

Multiculturalism.” Italian Studies 66: 3 (2011): 393-412. Print.

Pagliara, Maria. Il romanzo coloniale. Tra imperialismo e rimorso. Bari: Laterza, 2001. Print.

Palmer, Andrew. The New Pirates: Modern Global Piracy from Somalia to the South China Sea.

London: I.B. Tauris, 2014. Print.

Palumbo, Patrizia. ed. A Place in the Sun: Africa in Italian Colonial Culture: From Post-Unification

to the Present. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Print.

236

Parati, Graziella. Migration Italy: The Art of Talking Back in a Destination Culture. Toronto:

University of Toronto Press, 2005. Print.

Parati, Graziella. Migrant Writers and Urban Space in Italy: Proximities and Affect in Literature and

Film. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Print.

Parati, Graziella. “Looking through Non-Western Eyes: Immigrant Women’s Autobiographical

Narratives in Italian.” Writing New Identities: Gender, Nation, and Immigration in

Contemporary Europe. eds. Gisela Brinker-Gabler and Sidonie Smiths. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press, 1997. 118-143. Print.

Pezzotti, Barbara. Investigating Italy’s Past through Historical Crime Fiction, Films, and TV Series:

Murder in the Age of Chaos. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Print.

Pieri, Giuliana. “Between True Crime and Fiction: The World of Carlo Lucarelli.” Assassinations and

Murder in Modern Italy: Transformations in Society and Culture. eds. Stephen Gundle and

Lucia Rinaldi. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 193-207. Print.

Polezzi, Loredana. “Mixing Mother Tongues: Language, Narrative and the Spaces of Memory in

Postcolonial Works by Italian Women Writers (Part 1).” Romance Studies 24.2 (2006): 149-

158. Print.

Polezzi, Loredana. “White, male and Italian? Performing Masculinity in Italian Travel Writing about

Africa”. In Corpore: Bodies in Post-Unification Italy. eds. Loredana Polezzi and Charlotte

Ross. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007. 29-55. Print.

Polezzi, Loredana. “Mobilità, migrazione, traduzione.” Roots&Routes: Research on Visual Cultures

24(2017): 1-3. Web. 26 Jan 2017.

< http://www.roots-routes.org/tag/loredana-polezzi/>

Ponzanesi, Sandra. “The Postcolonial Turn in Italian Studies: European Perspectives.”Postcolonial

Italy: Challenging National Homogeneity. eds. Cristina Lombardi-Diop and Caterina Romeo.

New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2012. 51-70. Print.

237

Ponzanesi, Sandra. “The Past Holds No Terror?” Wasafari 15.31 (2000): 16-19. Print.

Ponzanesi, Sandra. “Beyond the Black Venus: Colonial Sexual Politics and Contemporary Visual

Practices.” Italian Colonialism: Legacy and Memory. eds. Jacqueline Andall and Derek

Duncan. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2005. 165-217. Print.

Ponzanesi, Sandra, and Goffredo Polizzi. “Does Italy need Postcolonial Theory? Intersections in

Italian Postcolonial Studies.” English Literature 3(2016): 145-163. Print.

Prestopino, Francesco. Sabbia, sudore, sogni: La Libia negli scritti degli italiani di Libia, 1943-1999.

Milan: La vita felice, 2001. Print.

Prestopino, Francesco. Versi sulla sabbia: la poetica coloniale di Libia. Milan: La vita felice, 2003.

Print.

Probyn, Elspeth. “Writing Shame.” The Affect Theory Reader. eds. Gregory Seighworth and Melissa

Gregg. North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2010. 71-93. Print.

Qader, Sumaya. Abdel. Porto il velo, adoro i Queen: Nuove italiane crescono. Milan: Sonzogno

editore, 2008. Print.

Riccardi, Claudia, Irene. “Intervista a Erminia Dell’Oro”. El-Ghibli. Web. 27 February 2017.

Ricci, Angelo. “Timira: Intervista a Wu Ming 2 e Antar Mohamed.” Il blog di Angelo Ricci, 27 June.

2012. Web. 15. March. 2018.

Richardson, Michael. “Torturous Affect: Writing and the Problem of Pain.” Traumatic Affect. eds.

Michael Richardson and Meera Atkinson. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2013. 148-

172. Print.

Richardson, Michael. “Criticism Beyond Judgement: Reading, Writing and the Affective Turn.”

Writing and Society Research Centre Seminar Series. Western Sydney University, Sydney. 11

September, 2015. Seminar.

238

Richardson, Michael, and Meera Atkinson. eds. Traumatic Affect. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars

Press, 2013. Print.

Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Malden: Blackwell Publication,

2004. Print.

Romeo, Caterina. Riscrivere la nazione: la letteratura italiana postcoloniale. Florence: Le Monnier,

2018. Print.

Rushdy, Ashray. “‘Rememory’: Primal Scenes and the Constructions in Toni Morrison’s Novels.”

Contemporary Literature 31.3 (1990): 300-323. Print.

Russell, Nicola. “The Collective Memory Before and After Halbwachs.” The French Review 79.4

(2006): 792-804. Print.

Saul, Jack. Collective Trauma, Collective healing: Promoting Community Resilience in the Aftermath

of Disaster. New York: Routledge, 2014, Print.

Scego, Igiaba. “Dismatria.” Pecore nere: racconti. Pecore nere. eds. Flavia Capitani and Emanuele

Coen. Rome: Editori Laterza, 2005. 5-21. Print.

Scego, Igiaba. “Salsicce.” Pecore nere. eds. Flavia Capitani and Emanuele Coen. Rome: Editori

Laterza, 2005. 23-26. Print.

Scego, Igiaba. La mia casa è dove sono. Milan: Rizzoli, 2010. Print.

Scego, Igiaba. Oltre Babilonia. Rome: Donzelli, 2008. Print.

Scego, Igiaba. Rhoda. Rome: Sinnos, 2004. Print.

Scego, Igiaba. Adua. Milan: Giunti editore, 2015. Print.

Scego, Igiaba. Caetano veloso: cammindano controvento. Turin: Add editore, 2016. Print.

Scego, Igiaba. “La madre e l’altra madre: la questione della lingua in Gabriella Ghermandi e Ubax

Cristina Ali Farah.” Moderna 12.1 (2010): 87-104. Print.

Scego, Igiaba, and Rino Bianchi. Roma negata: percorsi postcoloniali nella città. Rome: Ediesse,

2014. Print.

239

Schneider, Marilyn. Vengeance of the Victim: History and Symbol in Giorgio Bassani’s Fiction.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. Print.

Schwab, Gabriele. Haunting Legacies: Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma. New York:

Columbia University Press, 2010. Print.

Seigworth, Gregory, and Melissa Gregg. “An Inventory of Shimmers.” The Affect Theory Reader. eds.

Gregory Seighworth and Melissa Gregg. North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2010. 1-29.

Print.

Seigworth, Gregory, and Melissa Gregg. eds. The Affect Theory Reader. North Carolina: Duke

University Press, 2010. Print.

Shohat, Ella. “Notes on the Postcolonial.” Postcolonial Text 31.32 (1993): 99-133. Print.

Shouse, Eric. “Feeling, Emotion, Affect.” M/c Journal 8.6 (2005): 26. Print.

Sibhuta, Ribka. Aulò: Canto-poesia dall’Eritrea. Rome: Sinnos, 1993. Print.

Sicher, Efraim. The Holocaust Novel. New York: Routledge, 2005. Print.

Siebert, Renate. “Which Kind of Mediterranean Do We Want? Changing European Cultures and

Postcolonial Perspectives.” Cambio 6 (2013): 275-288. Print.

Silverman, Kaja. Threshold of the Visible World. New York: Routledge, 1996. Print.

Sinopoli, Franca. ed. Postcoloniale italiano. Tra letteratura e storia. Aprilia: Novalogos, 2013. Print.

Sogno, Egdardo. Guerra senza bandiera. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1955. Print.

Spina, Alessandro. I confini dell’ombra: In terra d’oltremare. Brescia: Morcelliana, 2006. Print.

Stefani, Giuletta. “Eroii e antieroi coloniale: Uomini italiani in Africa da Flaiano a Lucarelli.”

Zapruder 23 (2010): 40-56. Print.

Stephens, Angharad. “The Affective Atmospheres of Nationalism.” Cultural Geographies 23:2

(2016): 181-198. Print.

Still, Judith. “Language as Hospitality: Revisiting Intertextuality via Monolingualism of the Other.”

Paragraph 27.1 (2004): 113-127. Print.

240

Stoicea, Gabriela. “The Difficulties of Verbalizing Trauma. Translation and the Economy of Loss in

Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah.” The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association

39.2(2006): 43-53. Print.

Tal, Kali. Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1996. Print.

Tawfik, Younis, La straniera. Milan: Bompiani, 1999. Print.

Tobino, Mario. Il deserto della Libia. Milan: Mondadori, 1951. Print.

Tomasello, Giovanna. La letteratura coloniale italiana dalle avanguardie al fascismo. Palermo:

Sellerio, 1984. Print.

Tompkins, Silvan. Exploring Affect: The Selected Writing of Silvan. S Tompkins. ed. Virginia Demos.

New York: Press of the University of Cambridge. 1993. Print.

Tripodi, Paolo. Colonial Legacy in Somalia: Rome and Mogadishu: From Colonial Administration to

Operation Restore Hope. Basingstoke: Macmillan. 1991. Print.

Triulzi, Alessandro. “Displacing the Colonial Event.” Interventions 8.3 (2006): 430-443. Print.

Tronvoll, Kjetil., Charles Schaefer, and Girmachew Alemu, Aneme, eds. The Ethiopian Red Terror

Trials. Rochester: James Curry, 2009. Print.

Unnold, Yvonne. Representing the Unrepresentable: Literature of Trauma under Pinochet in Chile.

New York: Peter Lang, 2002. Print.

Valier, Claire, and Ronnie Lippens. “Moving Images, Ethics and Justice.” Punishment and Society

6.3(2004): 319-333. Print.

Vettori, Alessandro. “Giuseppe Berto”. Encyclopaedia of Italian Literary Studies Volume 1. eds.

Gaetana Marrone., Paolo Puppa, and Luca Somigli. Abigdon: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Viarengo, Abbebù, Maria. “Andiamo a spasso?” Linea d’ombra 54:75 (1990): 74-76. Print.

Vickroy, Laurie. Reading Trauma Narratives: The Contemporary Novel and the Psychology of

Oppression. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015. Print.

241

Vieten, Ulrike, and Scott Poynting. “Contemporary Far-Right Racist Populism in Europe.” Journal of

Intercultural Studies 37:6 (2016): 533-540. Print.

Visser, Irene. “Trauma theory and Postcolonial Literary Studies.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing 47.3

(2011): 270-282. Print.

Vivan, Itala. “La fortuna delle letterature africane in Italia nei cinquant’anni della postcolonialità 1960-

2010.” Scritture migrannti 6 (2012). Print.

Wadia, Laila. Il burattinaio e altre storie extra-italiane. Isernia: Cosmo Iannone, 2004, Print.

Wadia, Laila. Amiche per la pelle. Rome: Edizioni E/O, 2007, Print.

Wadia, Laila, ed. Mondopentola. Isernia: Cosmo Iannone, 2007, Print.

Wadia, Laila. Come diventare italiani in 24 ore. Il diario di un’aspirante italiana. Siena: Barbera,

2010, Print.

Wadia, Laila. Se tutte le donne. Siena: Barbera, 2012, Print.

Watson, Christine. “‘Believe Me’: Acts of Witnessing in Aboriginal Women’s Autobiographical

Narratives.” Journal of Australian Studies 24.64 (2002): 142-152. Print.

Watts, Julie. Immigration Policy and the Challenge of Globalization: Unions and Employers in an

Unlikely Alliance. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002. Print.

Whitehead, Anne. Trauma Fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004. Print.

Wiesel, Elie. Night. Trans. Rodway, Stella. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981. Print.

Wu Ming 1. 2008, “Premessa alla versione 2.0 di New Italian Epic”. Web. April 5, 2017.

Wu Ming 2, and Antar Mohammed. Timira: Romanzo meticcio. Turin: Einaudi, 2012. Print.

Wu Ming 2. Guerra agli umani. Turin: Einaudi, 2003. Print.

Wu Ming 2. Il sentiero degli dei. Turin: Ediciclo, 2010. Print.

Wu Ming, and Vitaliano Ravagli. Asce di guerra. Turin: Einaudi, 2005. Print.

Wu Ming. 54. Turin: Einaudi, 2002. Print.

242

Wu Ming. Manituana. Turin: Einaudi, 2007. Print.

Wu Ming. Altai. Turin: Einaudi, 2009. Print.

Wu Ming 1, and Roberto Santachiara. Point Lenana. Turin: Einaudi, 2013. Print.

Yanal, Robert. The Paradoxes of Emotion and Fiction. University Park: Pennsylvania State University

Press, 1999. Print.

Young, James. “Interpreting Literary Testimony: A Preface to Rereading Holocaust Diaries and

Memoirs.” New Literary Testimony 18.2 (1987): 403-423. Print.

Zanini-Cardi, Irene. Donne sciolte: Abbandono ed identità femminile nella letteratura italiana.

Ravenna: Longo, 2008. Print.

243

Minerva Access is the Institutional Repository of The University of Melbourne

Author/s: Carter, Joshua

Title: Witnessing and the renegotiation of traumatic memory in contemporary Italian literature

Date: 2018

Persistent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11343/215899

File Description: Witnessing and the Renegotiation of Traumatic Memory in Contemporary Italian Literature

Terms and Conditions: Terms and Conditions: Copyright in works deposited in Minerva Access is retained by the copyright owner. The work may not be altered without permission from the copyright owner. Readers may only download, print and save electronic copies of whole works for their own personal non-commercial use. Any use that exceeds these limits requires permission from the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from these works.