The Island, the Nation, the World. Sergio Atzeni and the post-modern definition of Sardinian ethnic identity

The AHRC Fellowship is requested in order to finance the final phases of the preparation of a monograph on the Italian writer Sergio Atzeni (1952-1995).

Atzeni has been defined by Ernesto Ferrero as an 'ethnic writer', whose stories draw on both the present and the mythical past of his native island, Sardinia. As well as being the author of novels, short stories, theatrical works and poetry, he worked as a journalist and as a translator from French into Italian. In the latter role, he translated essays by Claude Lévy-Strauss and Gérard Genette, as well as a novel by Patrick Chamoiseau. His idiolect - a refined literary Italian, open to dialects and foreign influences - is highly experimental yet accessible, personal yet communicative.

While strongly interested in preserving cultural traditions and local identities against contemporary homologation processes, operating at both national and international level, Atzeni is also an intellectual of his time. Politically involved in the 1968 movements, passionate about pop, rock, and jazz, a voracious and omnivorous reader, his different and contrasting influences emerge clearly in his own writing. The result is a post-modern mélange, where traditions and modernity coexist and clash on the levels of content, structure, language and style.

Since his premature death, Atzeni's importance as a writer has gained a wide and profound recognition. Most of his novels have been translated into French, and Il figlio di Bakunìn has also appeared in Spanish and English. His short story Bellas mariposas was included in the prestigious collection Racconti italiani, edited by Enzo Siciliano for the series 'I Meridiani' (Milan: Mondadori, 1997). An entry on Atzeni was added to the Lessico Universale Italiano of the Treccani encyclopedia (2001). In 2005, the tenth anniversary of his death further increased interest in his work, with major conferences in Turin and Cagliari, new editions of his works, and also theatre and cinema adaptations. Nevertheless, critical attention to Atzeni has hitherto been limited to a few scholarly articles, a collection of essays by Giuseppe Marci (1997) and the proceedings of a conference edited by Marci and myself (2001). Another collection of conference proceedings (Cagliari, 2005) is scheduled in 2011. My monograph constitutes the first attempt at a coherent stylistic, structural and thematic analysis of Atzeni's oeuvre.

I study Atzeni's oeuvre within the general framework of multilingualism in modern Italian novels; my approach integrates narratology, stylistics/linguistics, textual philology, and current trends in multicultural studies. My reading of Atzeni's work challenges the idea that a supposed centre still maintains its political, cultural, and linguistic supremacy over the peripheries, and - following from the influential ideas of Carlo Dionisotti and Gianfranco Contini - it reaffirms the historical vitality of polycentrism and multilingualism in Italian culture.

My study also links Atzeni's poetics to international models, especially to francophone writers from Martinique such as Patrick Chamoiseu, whose work was translated by Atzeni into Italian, and also Éduard Glissant. Thus, it proposes a definition of Atzeni's writing as part of a new Italian 'internal post-colonialism'. In this respect, my research, while aiming at extending the Italian literary canon of the late twentieth century, also fits into the 'Post-colonial Europe' project run by the Institute for Colonial and Post-colonial Studies in Leeds (of which I am a member) which 'enacts the return of the colonial gaze on contemporary metropolitan European societies and cultures. The project gauges the parameters of a rapidly transforming but still hierarchically structured polity in which new transnational forms of community, citizenship and governance jostle with atavistic attitudes to identity, terror and race' (see:http://www.leeds.ac.uk/english/shared/lpsc/projects.htm).

The non-academic impact of this project can be described mainly in terms of 1) the support it offers to the promotion of new international cultural and artistic products and events, 2) its uses for pedagogical activities outside the university (in schools, for example, or in continuing education programmes), and 3) its influence on Sardinian (but also Italian, and international) socio-intellectual growth.

1) To date, Sergio Atzeni has attracted the interest of many Italian intellectual and artists; several projects inspired by his work or devoted to his life are in progress at the moment, ranging from documentary and feature films to theatre productions and radio programmes. The completion of my monograph will not only provide new insights into Atzeni's biography and poetics, but will also make available for the first time new unpublished materials (letters, private notes, lectures), from which artists and general readers will benefit. At present, I am recognised as one of the leading critics working on contemporary Sardinian fiction and in particular on Atzeni's work. I have contributed as scientific consultant to a number of existing productions, and I am also involved in new ones (see the attached document Pathways to Impact). In the longer term, my aim is to co-ordinate in Italy, United Kingdom and France a series of public events centred on my monograph and/or on new texts inspired by Atzeni, thus fostering an international cultural debate on the central themes explored in his work.

2) I have always devoted time to disseminate my research outside the academic field, and I will continue doing so in relation to this project. A series of book presentations will be organised in Italian and European cities, and part of the materials produced will enrich the existing official website on Sergio Atzeni. Workshops on Atzeni and on literary representations of contemporary Sardinian culture will be organised for Italian high school students, as well as for mature learners in Italian and British centres for continuing education.

3) Finally, by presenting an analysis of the definition of Sardinian ethnic identity in the work of a writer at the end of the twentieth century, the project will also contribute to the socio-political debate on the specific characteristics of the island (and of minority cultures), both in the regional and national context and in the broader context of the European Union (Europe of the Regions). My analysis of literary texts will enrich understanding of ethnic identity, by showing that is not something fixed, defined since its origins and transmitted passively from one generation to the next. Instead it will present this identity as an artefact, produced and recreated differently in response to the different social and cultural needs of a given community at a specific time (or in a specific era). In this respect, literary and artistic texts can cast new light on the processes of self-representation elaborated by national communities; therefore, by presenting Sardinian people with new ways to look at their own identity in the global world, the project is likely to provoke a lively intellectual debate, leading possibly to new approaches to the making of socio-political policy.

Details on the impact activities related to this project are given in the attached document on Pathways to impact.