A journey through The Nature of Blood's places

Places seem to shape our existence. Human life is based on moments connected to a specific temporal and spatial fragment. As S. R, Sanders, in his book Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World(1994), has pointed out: 

“In belonging to a landscape, one feels a rightness, at-homeness, a knitting of self and world. This condition of clarity and focus, this being fully present, is akin to what the Buddhists call mindfulness, what Christian contemplatives refer to as recollection, what Quakers call centering down. I am suspicious of any philosophy that would separate this-worldly from other-worldly commitment. There is only one world, and we participate in it here and now, in our flesh and our place”. 

Trip to the Venetian Ghetto

Migration and Identity: Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Migration and identity are relevant topics in Moshin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist. The plot evolves around Changez, a Pakistani migrant in America, who struggles between two identities and is torn between the clash of two different worlds. As a matter of fact, after 9/11 and the following invasion of Afghanistan, he starts to resent America and he feels a crippling sense of displacement. His disillusionment will lead him back to his native country.

An interview with four immigrants

Italy is one of the most important destination countries for migrants in Europe. Around 500.000 regular migrants live there and the annual growth rate of migrant presence is, together with Spain, the highest in Europe. Italy is currently struggling to deal not only with the legal immigrants but also with the illegal ones. As a matter of fact, many of these undocumented immigrants use the sea route as a way to enter in the country. This problematic situation has increased tension within Italian cities, as well as feelings of animosity towards immigrants.
A week ago we decided to interview some immigrants living in Northern Italy in order to understand how they are treated by Italians, whether or not they feel welcomed, and if they are still victims of racial bias. The interview took place in four different cities - Brescia, Treviso, Mantua and Venice - and has been translated in English

Italian Diaspora in America: Italians as emigrants

Nowadays it is very common to define Italy as a country of immigration whilst in the past it was considered merely such as a country of emigration. During the unification of Italy in 1861, the rise of Fascism and the end of the World War II, there was a phenomenon known as the Italian Diaspora. At the beginning the so called “exodus” regarded only the Northern regions such as Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Lombardy and Piedmont. Afterwards, the phenomenon interested also the Southern Italian regions such as Calabria, Sicily and Campania. In particular Italians chose to move to America.

Analysis of the main structural aspects of Caryl Phillip’s The Nature of Blood

“ There is nobody with whom I might share memories of a common past, and nobody with whom I might converse in the language that sits most easily on my tongue[...]There is no turning back[...]Let the storm do its work!” 

 (Phillips,2008:160)