"Arcipelago: scrittori ebrei sefarditi nell'Italia postcoloniale"

This article presents Jewish writers from the Middle East, North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean – specifically: Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Rhodes – who emigrated to Italy in the 1950s or 1960s. Based upon the analysis of a corpus of novels, autobiographies and memoirs published mostly in the last twenty years, the article discusses issues of migration, the memory of the country of origin and the adaptation to the one of arrival. eir works can be inscribed on the one hand in the Italian migrant literature and in the history of (post)colonial Italy, and on the other hand in a more global Sephar- di literary diaspora, extending over several languages (for example Hebrew and French) and countries. By doing so, the article demonstrates that authors such as Miro Silvera, Isacco Papo, Daniela Dawan, Paolo Terni and many others, through the narration of vanished North African and Levantine worlds, compose a sort of literary «archipelago», that allows us to question foundational aspects of Jewish and more generally Italian identity, as well as phenomena – such as migration and experiences of displacement – increas- ingly central in the contemporary age and in its literary narration.