L’isola delle madri assenti: tracce di presenza femminile nella narrativa storica siciliana contemporanea (1990-2007)
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Date
2012-04
Authors
Todesco, Serena
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Publisher
University College Cork
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Abstract
The watershed constituted by the historical novels of Leonardo Sciascia (1921-
1989), Vincenzo Consolo (1933-2012) and Andrea Camilleri (born 1925), are starting
points for analysing subsequent writings of history in Sicily, particularly those that deal
with the hermeneutical function of literature as a means of critically reading official
historiography. Nevertheless, whereas ample critical attention has been paid to male
writers, whose work is deemed ‘mainstream’, there has been insufficient analysis of the
role of female authors in relation to literary representations of Sicilian history. By
considering the distinctiveness of the Sicilian literary tradition, the thesis identifies a
series of transformations of the genre which have occurred in recent years within the
context of feminine writing, and examines the historical narratives of contemporary
Sicilian writers Maria Attanasio, Silvana La Spina and Maria Rosa Cutrufelli produced
between 1990 and 2007.
The study problematizes the lack of critical debate about feminine narratives in
Sicily, and places these works in relation to developments in gender and genre theory,
focusing particularly on Margherita Ganeri’s studies on the historical genre and the
canon. After an introductory chapter which argues the case for examining Sicilian
female historical fiction as a distinct literary practice, the subsequent chapters feature
textual analyses of each author’s main historical fiction works, supporting the reading of
the texts with theoretical readings, including the micro-history of Carlo Ginzburg, the
écriture féminine of Hélène Cixous, the abjection theory of Julia Kristeva, the
theoretical propositions on “experience” by Joan Wallach Scott and Teresa De Lauretis,
and the theory of gender as performance proposed by Judith Butler. The analyses
underline the importance of the authors’ distinct feminine perspective over Sicilian
history and ultimately suggest that the three writers represent significant examples of a
“nomadic writing” to be placed outside the Sicilian male literary tradition.
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Keywords
Women , Sicily , History , Fiction , Gender
Citation
Todesco, S. 2012. L’isola delle madri assenti: tracce di presenza femminile nella narrativa storica siciliana contemporanea (1990-2007). PhD Thesis, University College Cork.