Tabucchi's Brutal Empires

Author: Wren-Owens, Liz¹

Source: The Modern Language Review, Volume 102, Number 3, 1 July 2007 , pp. 723-736(14)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract:

This article charts the dramatic shift in Antonio Tabucchi's representation of Portuguese empire, from a romanticized, Eurocentric depiction of imperialism in the 1984 text Notturno indiano to a portrayal of a brutal and repressive empire in his 1991 collection L'angelo nero and his 1997 novel La testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro. This abrupt change is located within the historiographical debates regarding empire which took place in Italy and Portugal from the 1970s onwards, and it is suggested that such a shift may be usefully viewed against the reassessment of Italian colonialism which occurred in Italy in the 1990s.

Keywords: Antonio Tabucchi; Portuguese empire; Notturno indiano; L'angelo nero; La testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro; historiographical debates regarding empire; Italy and Portugal; reassessment of Italian colonialism

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: University of Warwick