Transcultural Narrative Identities : A Study of Memoir in Contemporary Anglophone Women Authors of the Italian Diaspora

This is the first study on the development of Italian ethnic identity in North America (United States and Canada) from a gender perspective and based on memoir. It argues for a thoughtful reexamination of an emerging genre in contemporary autobiographical writing which is particularly apt for narrating the experiences of women and ethnic minorities.

This book aims to offer a new space for the analysis of female experience in the Italian diaspora through a selected sample of representative writers in contemporary Anglophone literature. In addition, the book proposes memoir writing as a fruitful ground for literary and cultural research and as an important framework that can be applied to enlarge paradigms of identity in our increasingly diverse societies. Intersectional memoirs –texts written from the perspective of ethnic women– are the focus of this innovative study. It examines the formation of narratives of identity in contemporary writing, particularly looking at the expression of cultural and gender difference through the genre of memoir and within the US and Canadian contexts. The work of migrant/ethnic communities and marginalized voices located at the boundaries of nations, cultures, social classes and genders, is explored through the intertwined use of literary, feminist, racial and cultural memory theory supported with textual analysis.