ABSTRACT
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's idea of becoming is pivotal in Somali Italian literature. Somali Italian writers are cosmopolitan intellectuals, who received a higher education, belong to a different social class, and came to Italy under different conditions from those experienced by most Somali immigrants and refugees. The construction of history in Somali Italian literature might be better understood through Deleuze's concept of minoritarian memory. The fragmentary representation of history in Somali Italian literature challenges the concepts of national spirit, heritage, and home, by negotiating both the notions of 'Italian' and 'Somali' as a 'becoming' rather than a 'being'. The hybridized language of Somali Italian texts and their concern for redefining the very idea of the nation in terms of language, race, religion, and gender resist the dominant white, patriarchal, and Catholic notion of identity. Both Italian and Somali colonial and nationalist historiographies are limited, if not distorted, if the nation state alone constitutes the unit of scholarly analysis.
