This study examines the recent literary phenomenon known as the New Italian Epic, a label coined by Wu Ming 1 in a document called the Memorandum in 2008. Wu Ming 1 used the label New Italian Epic to describe a corpus of Italian texts, mainly published after the year 2000, that are an unusual mix of genres, styles and media, and that have a renewed sense of political and ethical commitment. After describing the phenomenon and outlining the main theoretical underpinnings to my analysis of it, I examine the Memorandum in detail, in order to individuate the ideas that will resurface throughout the study, related to postmodernism, new technologies, history and memory studies, epic, realism, and the role of literature in society. This is followed by a periodisation, which traces developments in recent history and literature that influenced the New Italian Epic phenomenon, including the Cannibal and migrant writers of the nineties, the violent events at the G8 protest in Genoa in 2001, and the political and cultural climate in Italy in the new millennium. I go on to analyse three key themes that particularly stand out in the New Italian Epic texts – the recurring theme of the death of the father, the use of the historical novel form, and texts that seem to be journalistic, but sometimes change or distort reality – each of which is accompanied by close reading of two or three novels from the New Italian Epic corpus, and compared to other previous or contemporary cultural developments in Italy and abroad. I conclude by considering the interactions between literature and film in the twenty-first century, and suggest that the ‘unidentified narrative objects’ we have seen throughout the study seem to be a particular product of our times.

by Mark S. Plovnick, Ronald E. Fry, Irwin M. Rubin. / Supercedes [working paper] 789-75. / Bibliography: leaf 19.

The present study looks at the influence that two of the major cultural forces of the twentieth century had on the output of Carlo Emilio Gadda. It grew out of a search for ways of discussing Gadda and in particular his 1957 novel Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana that would be accessible to the widest possible audience. Ten chapters in length, the study treats first the influence that Christianity and in particular Italian Catholicism had on the avowedly atheist writer over five chapters, paying attention to the saints and holy places used in Gadda’s output, then moves on to consider the importance of his scientific training as an engineer and his interest in physics in the second half. Aside from examining the text of Quer pasticciaccio and other works such as Cognizione del dolore and La Madonna dei filosofi, I have used biographical information and in particular data gleaned from research in Gadda’s own personal library. The aims of the study are to introduce the reader unfamiliar with Gadda to his work, to offer a new framework by which the Gadda scholar may consider the Gran Lombardo, and to suggest new solutions to the unending puzzle that is Quer pasticciaccio.

This thesis asks how stereotypical images of a foreign country are reinforced or contested through translation in the context of the contemporary consumer book market. Taking Italy and the British publishing market as its focus, it sets out to examine the translation process for one popular genre of Italian fiction and two Italian bestsellers published in Britain after 2000. Gomorra by Roberto Saviano (2006) and Cento colpi di spazzola prima di andare a dormire by Melissa P. (2003) and the so-called ‘new Italian crime fiction’, are three recent Italian publishing phenomena that have been selected for translation into English. Once translated and distributed in the British market, they attracted significant commercial and critical attention in the literary field. How important was the association with stereotypical images of Italy in determining the success of these texts in Britain, a market that is famously resistant to translation? How was the idea of Italy re-negotiated and re-imagined throughout the translation process? In order to provide an answer to the above questions, both the translation and the paratranslation of the Italian texts are investigated. The translation of new Italian crime fiction is examined with a focus on the Italian and the British history of the genre and on its paratranslation. The fascinating implications of the new branding of the author Roberto Saviano, which emerged in the British literary field when Gomorra was translated into English, are explored in the context of both translation and paratranslation. Finally, in analysing the translation of Cento colpi I have focused on the work of the translator, Lawrence Venuti, and particularly on the implicationsthat his ideology of translation has on the idea of Italy and on that of “cultural difference” as they emerge from the target text. This thesis adopts an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, in which theoretical understandings from Translation Studies, Italian Studies, studies of the contemporary book market and media culture are integrated. It uses translation as a method to look into the workings of the contemporary book market and, more generally, to shed light on contemporary representations of Italy that circulate in the large mass mediated textual space through the mirror of translation.

This thesis explores the theme of freedom in Goliarda Sapienza's narrative, focusing in particular on three works: Lettera aperta (1967), L'arte della gioia (1998, posthumous) and Io, Jean Gabin (2010, posthumous). The analysis concentrates on the interplay between body and power in processes of identity formation; the main aspects taken into consideration are gender, sexuality and political ideology, with specific attention to the power involved in human relationships. This thesis comprises four chapters. The first three develop a close textual analysis of individual works, each one progressing from the exploration of the internal composition of the self to the analysis of identity in its interpersonal and socio-political dimension. The fourth chapter engages with a comparative analysis of the same works’ narrative structures, accounting for the role of writing in the evolution of Sapienza’s narrative. I identify the pivotal tension of Sapienza's works in the ideal of freedom, and propose to define her narrative as Epicurean and anarchic, characteristics that place it at the intersection of post-structuralist and Marxist-feminist discourses. Overall, I argue in favour of Sapienza's originality and significance within the context of 20^th-century Italian literature. I suggest an affinity between Sapienza's works and the literary legacy of Pirandello and Svevo, as well as certain tenets of postmodern fiction, but also a significant difference, concerning the presence of a tension towards agency and subjectivity, extraneous to the trajectory of the modern and postmodern subject. From a position of marginality and ex-centricity, Sapienza gives voice to a radical aspiration to individual and social transformation, in which writing and literary communication are granted a central role. Her works trace the parable of a strenuous deconstruction of oppressive norms and structures, aimed at retrieving a space of powerful bodily desire, which constitutes the foundation of the process of becoming a subject.