“‘We've Done Our Bit, Too!’”

Concerning the rise and development of postcolonial studies in Italy, there seems to be a misunderstanding derived from the different meanings given to the terms "postcolonial" and "studies". Only in the last two decades have Italian scholars started to produce original works on postcolonial theory in general and on Italian postcolonial theory, in particular. Challenging National Hegemony, editors Lombardi-Diop and Romeo highlight the publication in Italy "of path-breaking collections and monographs from the end of the 1990s". Not only postcolonial authors but also and especially postcolonial scholars should oppose monolingualism, expressing in their works their "impossible desire for all the languages in the world". More particularly, texts written by former colonial subjects in European languages such as English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish have been studied for at least half a century in Italy under different labels.