Nostalgia and Hybrid Identity in Italian Migrant Literature: The Case of Igiaba Scego

Abstract

This article discusses the concepts of nostalgia and cultural identity in Italian migrant literature in light of Bhabha’s theory of hybrid identity and Ahmed’s concept of home as a second skin. Nostalgia, from the Greek nóstos (return home) and álgia (pain), was originally a seventeenth century medical diagnosis for those suffering from severe homesickness, and the term is often used by scholars of migrant literature. But what is home in contemporary migrant literature? How can one long for a home one can no longer remember or never has lived in? How does nostalgia influence the migrant’s local and cultural identity? Among the authors who examine these questions is the Italian Somali writer Igiaba Scego, and the discussion of nostalgia and cultural identity will be based on readings of two of Scego’s short stories, “Dismatria” (“Exmatriate”) and “Salsicce” (“Sausages”), as well as her autofictional novel La mia casa è dove sono (My home is where I am).