Contro l’arroganza del potere: Antigone testimone del Novecento

The essay aims to analyse the testimonial value of the character Antigone through the different authors and the different cultural contexts in which she is used during the literary twentieth century: the constant of these representations is the obstinate struggle against the violence of the dominant power, from fascism to the South American dictatorship, through the feminist resistance against patriarchy and its most ruthless manifestations. In the rewrites of Antigone, the figure of the witness and the figure of the writer do not coincide: nevertheless, the construction and the narrative artifice have the prerogative of achieving not only a perceptibility and a transmissibility of the testimonial experience, but also, paradoxically, a greater approximation to the truth of the experience. From being a banner of rebellion and resistance, Antigone adapts to the symbolisation of different cultural instances and is moved by the desire to bear witness to and affirm the laws of justice. Among the various representations of Antigone in the 20th century is the one that sees her as the protagonist of a militant and obstinate search for female identity with Luce Irigaray, Virginia Woolf and Maria Zambrano. Grete Weil, on the other hand, makes Antigone both witness and victim of the Shoa, while Griselda Gambaro, from Argentina, proposes a rewriting of Sophocles’ tragedy in order to offer testimony to all the women devastated by the Argentinean dictatorship, mothers of the desaparecidos. Among the most recent re-uses of Antigone’s myth is the poetic text Nel letargo che seguiva l’ingranaggio dei, taken from Variazioni belliche by Amelia Rosselli, a collective emblem of the incurable wounds of History

«Tornare. Mangiare. Raccontare». I bisogni primari nelle testimonianze dei sopravvissuti

Primo Levi is considered to be the foremost author of testimonial literature, that is, of self-referential texts that do not recount one’s entire life or the events in which one has participated as a spectator, but rather a fragment delineated in time and space in which one’s individual life has been disrupted by extreme events that one wishes to account for on behalf of those who lived through them but did not survive. Recognised in other parts of the world as ‘testimonial literature’, in Italy it struggles to establish itself as an autonomous genre. However, in this essay, through three actions of a verse by Primo Levi, we attempt to identify an embryonic twentieth-century corpus recognisable as “testimonial literature”

Emigración italiana a las Américas

Se analizan tipologias de la emigracion italiana a las Americas: judia, intelectual, politica, economic

Manuela Sáenz antes y después de Bolívar.

From a conference of Teresa de la Parra in 1930, some women writers have ‘discovered’ Manuela Sáenz and transformed into the protagonist of historical novels characterized by alternative perspectives to official historiography linking feminist discourse to other discourses of rights protest of groups ‘weak’: blacks, Indians, etc.. We analyze the novels of five women writers: the Ecuadorians Luz Argentina Chiriboga (Jonatás y Manuela) and Edna Iturralde (Simón era su nombre), the Mexican Maria Eugenia Leefmans (La dama de los perros), the Argentinas Alicia Dujovne Ortiz (Anita cubierta de nieve) and Silvia Miguens (La gloria eres tú. Manuela Sáenz rigurosamente confidencial).A partir de una conferencia de Teresa de la Parra en 1930, algunas escritoras han ‘descubierto’ a Manuela Sáenz haciéndola protagonista de novelas caracterizadas por la elección de perspectivas alternativas a la historiografía oficial que enlazan el discurso feminista a otros discursos reivindicativos de grupos ‘débiles’: negros, indígenas, etc. Se analizan las novelas de cinco escritoras: las ecuatorianas Luz Argentina Chiriboga (Jonatás y Manuela) y Edna Iturralde (Simón era su nombre), la mexicana María Eugenia Leefmans (La dama de los perros), las argentinas Alicia Dujovne Ortiz (Anita cubierta de nieve) y Silvia Miguens (La gloria eres tú. Manuela Sáenz rigurosamente confidencial)

Vivere per testimoniare, testimoniare per vivere

[Italiano]: In particolari momenti della Storia e in determinati luoghi si producono in gran quantità testi che rispondono all’esigenza di testimoniare su catastrofi naturali, genocidi, dittature, campi di sterminio, tragedie, usurpazioni, violenze, che altrimenti rimarrebbero silenziati o cancellati dalla storia e dall’immaginario collettivo: è il caso dei sopravvissuti ai campi di sterminio nazifascisti europei e, negli anni ’70 e ’80 del novecento, alle dittature del Cono Sur latinoamericano. Vivere per testimoniare, testimoniare per vivere si prefigge di tracciare una mappa delle modalità del testimoniare, focalizzando l’attenzione su Argentina e Uruguay e individuando tipologie narrative ricorrenti tutte all’insegna della ricerca delle “parole per dirlo” e modalità che rendano credibile l’in-credibile e che favoriscano il processo comunicativo giacché, come riconobbe già Primo Levi, è l’ascolto che permette la testimonianza e le dà senso. Completa il libro una Appendice sulle pubblicazioni italiane riferite a quegli eventi./[English]: At particular moments in history and in certain places, a large number of texts are produced in response to the need to bear witness to natural catastrophes, genocides, dictatorships, extermination camps, tragedies, usurpations and violence, which would otherwise remain silenced or erased from history and from the collective imagination: this is the case of the survivors of the Nazi-Fascist extermination camps in Europe and, in the 1970s and 1980s, of the dictatorships of the Latin American Cone Sur. Living to testify, testifying to live aims to draw a map of the ways of testifying, focusing on Argentina and Uruguay and identifying recurring narrative typologies, all under the banner of the search for "words to say it" and ways that make the unbelievable credible and that favour the communicative process since, as Primo Levi already recognised, it is listening that enables testimony and gives it meaning. The book is completed by an Appendix on Italian publications related to those events

Luisa Campuzano - L'Avana: giubilo e fuga: Traduzione di Ludovica Bernardo, Carlotta Croci e Andrea Palumbo in collaborazione con Rosa Maria Grillo

Luisa Campuzano (L’Avana 1943), professoressa dell’Università di L’Avana, dirige il Centro de Estudios de la Mujer de las Américas presso Casa de las Américas, e la rivista Revolución y Cultura. L’Avana: gioia e fuga: la vita dell’autrice intrecciata alla storia e geografia della città

Nancy Alonso - L'Avana: la città che ci abita: Traduzione di Alberto Croce, Roberta Lorenzi e Alessia Zanetti in collaborazione con Rosa Maria Grillo

Nancy Alonso (L’Avana, 1943 – 2018), biologa e docente universitaria. Scoprì la sua vocazione letteraria scrivendo lettere dall’Etiopia, dove si trovava in missione.  I suoi racconti, spesso ambientati nell’amatissima Avana, testimoniano il contesto socio-economico della Cuba contemporanea

Nancy Alonso - Storia di una buca: Traduzione di Chiara Bussolini, Martina Gemelli e Giulia Gusmaroli in collaborazione con Rosa Maria Grillo

Nancy Alonso (L’Avana 1943 – 2018), biologa e docente universitaria. Scoprì la sua vocazione letteraria scrivendo lettere dall’Etiopia, dove si trovava in missione.  I suoi racconti, spesso ambientati nell’amatissima Avana, testimoniano il contesto socio-economico della Cuba contemporanea