Return Narratives

Ethnic Space in Late-Twentieth-Century Greek American and Italian American Literature

Theodora D. Patrona

This book is a comparative study of six Italian American and Greek American literary works written in the three last decades of the 20th century and examined in pairs. Based on the common theme of the authors' return, either metaphorical or literal to the country of origin and its culture, Return Narratives explores the common motifs of mythology, ritual, and storytelling where the third generation writers resort to in their quest for self-definition. With a common historical and cultural background in the old neighboring countries, Greece and Italy, and a similar reception in the new world facilitating a comparative approach, the ethnic writers of the two literatures, clearly envisage ethnic space as a site of resilience and empowerment.

University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Pages: 208 • Trim: 6½ x 9½

978-1-61147-994-2 • Hardback • August 2017 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-61147-995-9 • eBook • August 2017 • $105.50 • (£82.00)

Series: The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Italian Studies

Subjects: Literary Criticism / American / General, Literary Criticism / Modern / 20th Century, Literary Criticism / European / Italian

Return Narratives

Ethnic Space in Late-Twentieth-Century Greek American and Italian American Literature

Hardback

eBook

Summary

This book is a comparative study of six Italian American and Greek American literary works written in the three last decades of the 20th century and examined in pairs. Based on the common theme of the authors' return, either metaphorical or literal to the country of origin and its culture, Return Narratives explores the common motifs of mythology, ritual, and storytelling where the third generation writers resort to in their quest for self-definition. With a common historical and cultural background in the old neighboring countries, Greece and Italy, and a similar reception in the new world facilitating a comparative approach, the ethnic writers of the two literatures, clearly envisage ethnic space as a site of resilience and empowerment.

Details

University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Pages: 208 • Trim: 6½ x 9½

978-1-61147-994-2 • Hardback • August 2017 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-61147-995-9 • eBook • August 2017 • $105.50 • (£82.00)

Series: The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Italian Studies

Subjects: Literary Criticism / American / General, Literary Criticism / Modern / 20th Century, Literary Criticism / European / Italian

Author

Theodora D. Patrona taught at the Aristotle University and the Technological Institute of Crete in Heraklion.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I: (De)Mystified Ethnic Space: Novels of the Seventies
Chapter 1 The Return to the Self and the Mystified Homeland: Daphne Athas’s
Cora (1978)
Chapter 2 Ethnic Space, Umbertina Women (1979), and the Voyage to Self-
Definition
Part II: Persephone Returns Home: A Greek American and an Italian American Work of the Nineties
Chapter 3Mythic Wanderings in Catherine Temma Davidson’s The PriestFainted (1998)Chapter 4 Italian-American Persephone in a Sicilian Setting: Susan Caperna
Lloyd’s No Pictures in My Grave (1992)
Part III: Ethnic “History” and Storytelling: Voicing the Male
Chapter 5 Reared by Myth and Folklore: Stratis Haviaras’s When the Tree Sings
(1979)
Chapter 6 Ethnic Fables of Social Justice: Tony Ardizzone’s In the Garden of
Papa Santuzzu (1999)
Closings and Openings
Works Cited

Reviews

Return Narratives marks a beginning point in the comparative study of Greek American and Italian American literature, particularly with regard to what they can tell us about ethnic self-identification and space. Patrona’s detailed close readings of the six texts illuminate useful areas of thought and illustrate the limitations imposed on the characters in their journey of ethnic identity creation.
— Transnational Literature

Una faccia, una razza, usually translated as same face, same race, has long been used to extoll the similarities between Greek and Italian cultures. With Return Narratives, Theodora Patrona delves beneath cultural surfaces to render deeper understandings of the experiences of these two major world cultures and their diasporas. Patrona’s unique perspective comes from her knowledge of their languages, histories, and literary productions, and provides us with a powerful testament to the benefits of comparative cultural studies and the importance of exploring literary responses to world diasporas. Brava, καλός!
— Fred Gardaphe, Distinguished Professor of English and Italian American Studies at Queens College/City University of New York and Author of Italian Signs, American Streets

This book provides a comparative study of the literature of two Euro American groups with a long history in American letters. This is also a comparative study of two “New Immigrant” groups whose pre American history converged creatively in places such as the Pelopponese, Sicily and Southern Italy. History and myth, reality and fantasy have a catalytic role in the structuring of the protagonists’s identities and by extension of the implied authors of the novels under discussion. This is a thorough and inspired academic analysis of how the American descendants of the Greeks and the Italians dreamt of and fictionalized their dreams of the immigrant ancestors’s pre American spaces and places.
— Yiorgos Kalogeras, Yiorgos Kalogeras, PhD, Professor of the School of English at the Aristotle U of Thessaloniki, Greece; President of MESEA

Timely, incisive, and insightful, Return Narratives is an outstanding and original contribution to current scholarship on ethnic American literatures. Examining both Italian American and Greek American writing through the prism of return, Theodora Patrona’s comparative readings of contemporary fiction and autobiography highlight diverse ways that organize imagined pasts and their role in forming ethnic identity. Patrona’s unrivaled interpretations of texts by key authors ranging from Daphne Athas to Tony Ardizzione interweave current cultural theory with myth, gender, and story-telling, always attentive to the specificities of historical experiences. Return Narratives is at the forefront of current transnational scholarship exploring migrating cultures.
— Jopi Nyman, School of Humanities, University of Eastern Finland

An insightful and ground-breaking volume that, for the first time, compares return narratives written by Greek American and Italian American writers, employing a variety of perspectives and theoretical approaches. A useful tool for those who first approach these narratives as well as for experts in the field.
— Elisabetta Marino, University of Rome Tor Vergata