This essay considers a number of travellers’ writings about Africa which are reread to construct and deconstruct Italian colonial identity. It focuses on Cesare Cesari’s Viaggi africani di Pellegrino Matteucci (1932), which deems Matteucci a precursor of Fascist colonialism and contributor to Fascist “colonial science”. The essay then moves on to explore the more recent rereading by Angelo Del Boca and Igiaba Scego of respectively Indro Montanelli’s XX Battaglione Eritreo (1936) and Errico Emanuelli’s Settimana nera (1961). By bringing together and rereading these texts, the essay maps the transformations of Italianness from colonial to postcolonial times and reveals how colonial identity relied on a series of gender, racial and sexual tropes of exploration and conquest.
Royal Holloway, University of London, United Kingdom - ORCID: 0000-0001-8465-587X
Chapter Title
Rereading Italian Travellers to Africa: Precursors, Identities and Interracial Relations in Narratives of Italian Colonialism
Authors
Fabrizio De Donno
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-579-0.05
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2022
Copyright Information
© 2022 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Rereading Travellers to the East
Book Subtitle
Shaping Identities and Building the Nation in Post-unification Italy
Editors
Beatrice Falcucci, Emanuele Giusti, Davide Trentacoste
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
232
Publication Year
2022
Copyright Information
© 2022 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-579-0
ISBN Print
978-88-5518-578-3
eISBN (pdf)
978-88-5518-579-0
eISBN (epub)
978-88-5518-580-6
Series Title
Connessioni. Studies in Transcultural History
Series ISSN
2975-0393
Series E-ISSN
2975-0261