ABSTRACT
The anthology was intended not as an act of separatism, of setting a specific ethnic group apart from the main body of American literature, nor, indeed, Italian American women writers apart from their male counterparts, but rather as an act of inclusion and completion: restoring to the body of the national literature the names of women authors who had been overlooked even as men were being documented in literary histories and bibliographies and stood as the only examples of Italian American writing. In histories, sociological tracts, bibliographies, conferences, and articles, the names mentioned as Italian American writers have always been those of male authors, just as the achievers in other areas have been male; it is a near totality of male presence that effectively undercuts the importance and witness of women in the Italian American experience. The new writers assign meanings through their poetry, novels, stories, essays, and plays.
