The Mediterranean of Migrant, Postcolonial, and Exile Writers

Abstract

By the mid-1970s, Italy, which like Greece, Portugal, and Spain had been one of Southern Europe’s traditional out-migration countries, became a destination for individuals who crossed the Mediterranean from the Strait of Gibraltar between Morocco and Spain, the Channel of Sicily between Tunisia and Sicily, and the Channel of Otranto between Albania and the Adriatic coast. At that time, the migrants registered on Italian soil amounted to less than 150,000, but by 1997, their number had increased to over a million. Today, the dossiers of Caritas/Migrantes estimate that close to five million emigrants reside on Italian soil (Immigrazione Dossier 57).1 Nationalistic myths and strict legislative measures to control borders and reinforce frontiers soon followed, but by the early 1990s, migrants started to claim a presence in the Italian literary landscape, giving voice to the many ties that bind people across the sea and questioning normative definitions of “Italianness” to greatly enrich present-day discourses on Italy and the Mediterranean.