The North American Italian Renaissance (Essay Series 43)

This collection of essays offers the reader a critical analysis of the wide range of Italianese literature written over the last thirty years in North America. While writing by Italians in North America dates back over to the settlement of the New World, the last three decades in both Canada and America can justifiably be termed a renaissance in Italian writing. Both post-war immigrants and second and third generation North America Italians have produced a plethora of works in all literary genres and academic fields. Kenneth Scambray discusses the five major categories representative critical, scholarly, and imaginative works written since the 1970s. In the first three sections on history, folklore, and sociology, he locates the Italian experience socially and culturally in North America. In the following sections Scambray explores the works of selected North American Italian novelists, poets, and playwrights who have written about their Italian ethnic experiences.