ABSTRACT
In recent decades, under the economic conditions of globalization, increased migration flows have introduced new cultural and linguistic diversity in previously more apparently homogeneous communities. Such movements and new settlements have changed the places left behind as well as their new locations. The ways in which they have affected the feelings and practices of migrants and their new neighbours is particularly visible in urban centres. Drawing on work done within Translation Studies that uses fiction to theorize about translation, and on work in Literary Studies, where translation is used as a metaphor to reflect on social processes, such as migration, this chapter will examine recent literary representations of multi-ethnic urban scenarios in Italy. Through a reading of Roma Negata. Percorsi postcoloniali nella città (Rome Denied: Postcolonial Paths in the City 2014) by Rino Bianchi and Igiaba Scego and Milano, fin qui tutto bene (Milan, So Far So Good 2012) by Gabriella Kuruvilla, I examine how both authors combine text and images to create a productive narrative and a visual remapping of their private relationship to the worlds they inhabit, which, in turn, provides new insights into the complex interrelations between personal and collective cultural memory. It will be argued that these narratives challenge fixed notions of national/ethnic belonging by uncovering forgotten, hidden stories of other worlds whose memories prove to be foundational to the construction of contemporary Italian identity and culture.
