Travelling to Italy: Italy in the Anglophone Imagination

The project explores the representation of Italy in works by contemporary Anglophone writers, focusing on Nuruddin Farah, Caryl Phillips and Jhumpa Lahiri. The project argues that by analysing how these writers collectively imagine Italy in their narratives and how these narratives are translated, circulated and received in Italy, a new understanding of the contours and substance of the Anglophone postcolonial and transnational imaginaries is produced. As such, the project contributes to a wider discussion of how Italy's colonial past and more recent status as a site of migration impact the narratives that underlie the concept of Italy.