Collective Memory and Childhood Narratives: Rewriting the 1970s in the 1990s *

The 1970s events focalized through Alex's memory are described as 'la memoria delle stragi della sua infanzia', a sentence that, for its ability to conflate collective and private perceptions, is also a rewriting of the historical as personal. The novelists of the 'pulp generation' — such as Silvia Ballestra, Enrico Brizzi, Giuseppe Caliceti, Rossana Campo, Aldo Nove and Isabella Santacroce — write characters whose childhoods, extend between the occupation of the University of Trento in 1967 and the explosion of the bomb in Bologna Central Station in 1980. This chapter examines some of the Italian fiction of the 1990s which engages with the 1970s. The discussion focuses on texts that illustrate the different and, often, contradictory narrative approaches the younger writers seem to adopt when they write about the years of their childhood and youth. The chapter explores how the 1970s have been idealized by authors such as Brizzi as a time of fervent youth cultural and political militancy.