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Dossier
Italian/Canadian writers debate their role at Metropolis Azzurro By Elvira Truglia
It was one of those gathering of minds that left you with more questions than answers. Was Antonio D’Alfonso being rhetorical when he talked about burning 93,000 books published by Guernica Editions, the publishing company he founded 31 years ago? Why is Enza Martuccelli a “self-hating” Italian? And why is Filippo Salvatore so optimistic? The 75-minute panel discussion “Italian-Canadian Writing Inside/Outside” held at the Blue Metropolis International Montreal Literary Festival on April 26 provided a lively debate on the role and value of Italian-Canadian writers inside and outside the community. he forum was held to discuss the role of the Italian-Canadian writer as a creative force and social/political commentator and was hosted by Connie Guzzo-McParland, Secretary of the Association of Italian-Canadian Writers (AICW) and Giuseppe Turi, Honorary President of the Dante Alighieri Society of Montreal. Panelists included Licia Canton, Antonio D’Alfonso, Marcello Di Cintio, Enza Martuccelli and Filippo Salvatore. The panel drew on a range of experiences from those who have been working to promote Italian/Canadian writing in academia and in the publishing industry to those who have not been engaged in the Italian community at all. It was this diversity that made the discussion both unruly and engaging. Antonio D’Alfonso does not believe he is seen to represent Italian/Canadians at all and questions his role even in the Italo-Quebecois community. The causes of his disgruntlement are the difficulties facing Guernica Editions, established in 1978 to publish Italian/Canadian voices. Despite having published more than 450 titles, winning numerous awards and being the co-founder of two other important Italian/Canadian cultural initiatives: the tri-lingual magazine Vice Versa (1982) and the AICW (1986), D’Alfonso is not pleased. “I’m going to be burning 93,000 books,” because they don’t sell. Enza Martuccelli, Director of community relations for the Canadian Jewish Congress of Quebec, focused on the responsibility of the writing community to make a difference. She described herself as a “self-hating Italian” and decided to disengage from the Italian community because of what she saw as the limiting tendencies to focus on nostalgia, trivialization and stereotypes in cultural productions. Martuccelli thinks that Italian/Canadian writers have missed an opportunity to tell a broader story. “Writers have a responsibility not to shy away from conflict,” she says, and believes that they need to speak out on large socio-political issues like reasonable accommodation and multiculturalism.
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www.panoramitalia.com Taking on such an advocacy role would mean speaking in a united voice, a difficult task in a fragmented community with generational and cultural gaps. Licia Canton is the Editor-in-Chief of Accenti Magazine, whose mission is to create a cultural bridge among people of Italian origin and beyond. She says that we could be playing a role collectively but the community is falling short. Of the 300,000 Quebecers of Italian-origin, very few go to literary events “so most don’t even know there is an Italian/Canadian writing community”. Or maybe they do but choose to take a distance. To make more of an impact, Canton feels that people need to speak to each other across generations, an important step in order to learn and to be inspired by the younger generation. If the audience for Italian/Canadian writing is sparse and indistinct, then what have Italian/ Canadians contributed to public discourse? Filippo Salvatore points to academics and cultural initiatives that have defined and redefined the relationship between Italian/Canadians, ethnic minorities in general, the state, culture and society. According to the Editorin-Chief of PanoramItalia, in the last thirty years, the five greatest theoretical contributions from Italian/ Canadians in Quebec are: Marco Micone’s “La culture immigrée”, Vice Versa magazine’s notion of “transculture”, Antonio D’Alfonso’s “triangulation des cultures”, Fulvio Caccia’s “devenir minoritaire” and Filippo Salvatore’s “métissage”. Salvatore describes the role of Italian/ Canadians as an evolving one. Italian/Canadians no longer have to worry about just putting food on the table and “are in a position to really contribute to culture,” he says. Salvatore is inspired by the energy of the younger generation and believes Italian/ Canadians are at a turning point. Perhaps the work of writer Marcello Di Cintio is an indication of a new direction. This award-winning non-fiction writer has spent the last five years traveling and writing about North Africa and the Middle East. His latest book chronicled his time in Iran seeking Persian poets and traditional wrestlers. For him, the writer absolutely has a responsibility to present socio-political concerns. But the marker of a good writer is how well you represent another community – did you get it right? Salvatore reassured D’Alfonso about the value of his work, “you’ve put us on the map,” he says, along with others who have managed to introduce Italian/Canadian literature into academia as a field of study in its own right. Yet, Di Cintio asks a different question - did you get it right? No individual work can tell the story of an entire community, and even a collective body of work is only partial. So maybe being on the map is not enough. Salvatore says writers should not look for recognition as an indicator of success but rather how well one’s writing stands up against great literature through the test of time. It’s a question of craft. If this is the case, then perhaps the real discussion should not be about defining the role of the Italian/Canadian writing community (which is unfixed) but about looking at the contributions of writers of Italian origin who write well. Punto. v