From Pecore nere to Future: Anthologizing intersectional Blackness in contemporary Italy

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article develops an analysis of Future (2019), the first anthology to bring together texts by Black Italian women and non-binary writers of African and Caribbean descent, and reads it in continuity with the pioneering anthology Pecore nere (Black Sheep) (2005), the first collection of short stories to thematize racial difference in postcolonial Italy. It initially articulates a reflection on the anthology as an autonomous genre that has had both a conservative and an innovative function in Italian literature and culture, and then examines how Future openly deploys an intersectional approach to denounce structural racism and sexism and to displace the white and whitening colonial male gaze. The article, furthermore, highlights how Future participates in a transnational creative and critical conversation with other Black feminists, Black Mediterranean and Black European authors, thus contributing to the de-centralization of US narratives about race while further enriching the debate about processes of racialization in Europe.