Volume 38, Number 1, Spring 2024

EN:

Diego Bastianutti’s poetry is part of a cathartic process of coming to terms with his exile from Fiume during the Julian-Dalmatian exodus immediately following the Second World War. This article analyzes Bastianutti’s poetry, focusing on his process of coming to terms with his exile and his multi-layered cultural identity. His self-identification as mestizo, a Spanish term usually used to describe someone of mixed Spanish and Indigenous descent, and then as an antevasin, a Sanskrit term for a border-dweller, emerge as solutions to, or rationalizations for, the problem of the pain Bastianutti wrestles with as a result of his exile, displacement, and emigration.

EN:

After briefly tracing the history of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s travels in the Americas through the photographs that immortalize him, I focus my attention on the reception of his work and thought in Canada. I consider it significant especially in the context of gay, queer, and LGBTQ+ culture and among Italian-Canadian intellectuals. In the Canadian context, characterized by linguistic and cultural plurality, writers and essayists of Italian descent translate Pasolini’s works, absorb his lessons, and draw on his thought to explore mainly identity-related issues. In the queer artistic milieu, it will be Pasolini’s biographical journey in particular that attracts the attention of intellectuals and performers who, by manipulating his works and images, transform him into an icon of the different.

EN:

This article investigates 20 qualitative interviews collected with new migrants of Italian origins settled in Toronto (Ontario) and in London (UK). The aim of the study is to identify the identity markers used by migrants to express their feeling of belonging to Italy and to Canada/UK and to position themselves into two different categories, expat and migrants. According to previous quantitative studies, these two labels refer to two different patterns of immigration: expat in fact includes contemporary skilled and temporary migrations, while migrant deals with unskilled migrations. So, the study of identity markers used in qualitative interviews is crucial in order to investigate how migrants position themselves in the host Country.

The results provide evidence of a deep distinction of two different groups of speakers: the first one is composed of those Italians who consider themselves as expats and this is evident since they report in their interviews all those identity markers discussed in the literature as typical of this kind of migration (level of education, social status, use of English). The second one is, instead, composed of those Italians who consider themselves as migrants using those markers already reported in the bibliography for migrants (and not for expats, such as the poor use of English, the low level of education and the temporary job).

EN:

In this interview, Fulvio Caccia, an Italian-Canadian Governor General’s Award–winning francophone poet, novelist, and essayist, reflects on his literary career spanning over four decades. A prolific writer who has published over two dozen books, Caccia discusses the underlying themes in his works and the unique challenges posed by different literary forms. Caccia acknowledges that he often explores themes of identity and belonging in his creative endeavours, readily unravelling the layers of the immigrant experience. In his search for self-discovery, he challenges conventional notions of nationality and cultural belonging. A Montrealer at heart, but now living in the Paris region, Caccia delves into the genesis of his novel, La coïncidence (Triptyque, 2005), which focuses in part on the École Polytechnique massacre, a mass shooting that occurred on the grounds of the University of Montreal on 6 December 1989, killing fourteen female engineering students and injuring many others. In the narrative, the author looks into the enduring impact of past traumas on present lives, the complexities of human relationships, and the interplay of fate, love, and tragedy. Beyond a mere discussion of this novel, which was translated from French into English by Robert Richard and published by Guernica Editions in 2015, Caccia offers in this interview profound insights into his poetry, which draws extensively from his experiences as the son of Italian immigrants.