Fabiano Gritti – Il multilinguismo nella letteratura postcoloniale italiana: il caso di Cassandra a Mogadiscio
Fabiano Gritti
Università Costantino Filosofo, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Nitra, Slovacchia
Abstract
Plurilingualism in Postcolonial Italian Literature: The Case of "Cassandra in Mogadishu"
The novel under consideration here employs a plurilingualism that in some respects appears to differ from previous publications by postcolonial women writers. The strongly autobiographical story is based on the epistolary exchange between Igiaba Scego, from a Somali family but raised in Italy, and a Somali cousin raised in Canada, where Italian becomes the common language. Italian is preferred at thte behest of the mother, who accepts it as the language of her and her daughter's future, as a unifying element of the family itself. The language of the colonial oppressor, as well as the language of bureaucracy and of humiliation in the immigrant situation, becomes the language of the spirit and ultimately a vehicle for the Somali language itself, which finds a new expressive dimension in plurilingualism.
Keywords: plurilingualism, postcolonial literature, migration literature
