Rome, la Grande Mère et la Shoah

Italian Holocaust literature took two main paths after the war. The first was the path of Se questo e un uomo (If This Is a Man). By now it is an overcrowded path that has ultimately obscured another : that of the Roman ghetto roundup and the literature written about it. Studying the role of October 16, 1943, in Italian literature means resuming a three-way conversation. Saba – Debenedetti, Saba – Morante, Debenedetti – Morante. Contrary to what one might think, it is Umberto Saba and not Giacomo Debenedetti who constitutes the apex of this triangle. In the end, it is Elsa Morante who rounds out the intrigue. With her 1974 book La Storia (History), the writing is materialized in the work of a Jewish nanny who gives body to the idea of the Holocaust by acting as the “bosom of poetry.”

Art · Art history · Conversation · Humanities · Linguistics · Literature · Poetry · The Holocaust · Theology · Cultural Identity and Heritage · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Philosophy