Writing With An Accent: Contemporary Italian American Women Authors

Writing with an Accent explores the variety of uses of ethnic voice in the narratives of contemporary Italian American women. Writers such as Mary Cappello, Louise DeSalvo, Agnes Rossi, Helen Barolini, Tina De Rosa, and Sandra M. Gilbert enact, in their works, a self-silencing of ethnic voice, critically modifying accepted representations and mythologies of Italian American culture through distinct and inventive narrative inflections. Accent, that which emphasizes and alters language, functions as the cultural and metaphorical lens through which Giunta reads a rich body of work that is still awaiting widespread recognition.