From Little Girls to Bad Girls: Women's Writing and Experimentalism in the 1970s and 1990s *

This chapter analyses the hypothesis that there is a 'tradition', otherwise neglected or denied by scholars, of consciously anti-realist writing by women which originates in the 1960s and, through the 1970s, finds its point of arrival in the 1990s. It focuses on two texts from the 1970s, Leila Baiardo's L'inseguimento and Castelli's own novel Pitonessa, to see the way they start to make inroads into the representation of female rebellion. The chapter considers on the legacy of the 1970s for the youth narrative of the 1990s. The young protagonists of the narratives by cannibali as well as non-cannibali young writers are 'bad girls', young adult women who set out to get what they want, adult sexual versions of Castelli's rebellious bambine. La figlia prodiga anticipates the critique of heterosexuality conducted by Wittig in both her theoretical writings and experimental narratives, as well as the formal and ideological concerns of the Italian neo-avant-garde.