African Italian literature is the body of literary artifacts produced in Italy by authors of African descent. The tradition emerged in the 1990s to document the trials that African immigrants faced in the
Bel Paese. The penultimate decade of the twentieth century marked the beginning of the African migratory waves to Europe, and Italy, whose southernmost point Lampedusa is only seventy miles from the Tunisian coast, became one of the most desirable destinations for African immigrants willing to leave those regions particularly afflicted by the aftermath of the decolonization process that began after WWII and ended in the second half of the 1970s. As they made the migrant experience visible, the first African Italian works represented an unexpected turn in the artistic scenario of the…
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Citation: Ciamparella, Anna. "African Italian literature". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 January 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19536, accessed 21 November 2024.]
