Abstract:

Translating Identities: Exile, Diaspora and Translation in Laura Pariani’s Argentinian Works.

Laura Pariani is a perfect embodiment of the complexities of contemporary Italian narrative. Her production blends together the peripheral space of dialectal identities, recreated through the use of Lombard dialect, and the Italian-Argentinian migration, of which she offers many autobiographical depictions. So far, scholars have focused on her depiction of nomadic figures (Horn 2013) and on the feminist overtones of her narrative (Sulis 2013), neglecting her use of multilingualism and the importance of translation for her aesthetics.

The paper will focus on this topic, inquiring how translation has helped reshape her representation of Italian-Argentinian community in works such as “Quando Dio Ballava il tango” (2002) , “La straduzione” (2004), “Dio non ama i bambini”(2007), and “Il piatto dell’Angelo” (2013). The paper will compare these works to Pariani’s translations of Argentinian authors such as Antonio dal Masetto, showing the similarities between her translating practice and her writing.

Bio:

Valentina Fulginiti is a Lecturer of Italian at Cornell University. She earned a PhD in Italian Studies from the University of Toronto, and a MA in Italian linguistics from the University of Bologna. Her research focuses on the linguistic representation of otherness in 19^th and 20^th century narrative and theater. Her articles have appeared in The Italianist, California Italian Studies, Carte Italiane, Ticontre, and Rivista di Studi Italiani.