Troubador Italian Studies – serie

What can two countries at the edge of Europe with very different histories, people and climates have in common? When brought together as they are in this book, probably for the first time, Sicily and Scotland prove to have some surprising similarities as well as more predictable differences. Both once independent nations, they are now part of larger nation states, but each still retains a deep sense of independent cultural and political identity rooted in its separate history and language which is explored in literature and film. Both favoured destinations of tourists, they have proved immensely attractive to travel writers, here represented by studies of Scottish travellers writing about Sicily. Finally they have both been great emigrant nations, sending their people across the globe to settle in faraway places, although their experiences in their new nations were very different. This book focuses on these three major strands of comparison and contrast: literature and film, travel writing and emigration. It explores the work of some of each nation's most famous writers (Sciascia, Lampedusa, Scott and Stevenson) and some well known and acclaimed films by directors of the stature of Visconti, Tornatore, Forsyth and Loach. It considers the string of Scots who, before it was discovered by tourists, made the long and unfamiliar journey to Sicily culminating in Patrick Brydone’s Tour Through Sicily and Malta which proved to be immensely popular and went through many editions after its first appearance in 1773. Finally it provides a comparison of the experience of Sicilian and Scottish emigrants through a general survey of Scottish migration, the particular case study of Sicilians in Australia, and one man’s personal account of the lives of his Sicilian and Scottish ancestors in America. The writers of this book present a fascinating comparison of these two places which have been much studied but almost never brought together before.

Out of Italy concerns the Italian contribution to life in North-East England since Roman times, with particular attention to the last 250 years. Italian-Swiss stuccoists decorated many of the region’s finest historic buildings; a colony of skilled craftsmen from Como specialised in manufacturing optical instruments in Victorian Newcastle; and there have lived among us gifted Italian architects, artists, glass-blowers, mosaic workers, and even, briefly, Giuseppe Garibaldi.In the nineteenth century, numerous Italians from a peasant background found their way here to try their luck as street traders and organ-grinders, chestnut sellers and ice cream makers, and many went on to found their families’ fortunes. But with the Second World War, when anti-Italian feeling ran high, the community’s resilience was tested to the utmost: even elderly long-settled Italians were interned as ‘enemy aliens’, while other family members served in the British forces, one even winning the VC. From 1942, thousands of Italian prisoners-of-war filled labour camps in the North-East, and a few eventually settled. Mass emigration from Italy resumed after the war, bringing hundreds of men and women to work among us. Their presence and their skills, like those of their many forerunners, have coloured the life of our region in numerous ways. Over 300 evocative illustrations accompany a lively narrative which details the lives of many individuals and families within the broader context of their times.This is the first book to study Italian immigration in a region of England in such detail and over such a long period of time.

Recognised as the Italian capital of noir, Bologna (Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy) continues to produce striking writers. This book introduces Marilu Oliva, defined by Maurizo de Giovanni and Matteo Strukul as the most incisive voice of noir in Italy.