Representing urban and non-urban spaces in contemporary Italian literature

What is it about?

This article deals with the growing interest in space in contemporary Italian literature. In particular, it focuses on current trends in the representation of cities, suburbs, and rural areas, as exemplified for instance by the book series 'Contromano' (Laterza, 2004-ongoing). The main features analyzed in the article include the special emphasis on walking as a way to redefine space from below (as opposed to the 'bird's eye view' often used by urban planners), the questioning of borders, and the symbolic function assigned to ruins and abandoned buildings.

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Why is it important?

This article provides a comprehensive overview of a growing trend in Italian literature, by analyzing a corpus of 14 highly representative texts. On a theoretical level, it emphasizes the yet unexplored links between the notion of spectrality and Francesco Orlando's work on Obsolete Objects in the Literary Imagination.