Dr. Teresa Fiore’s book Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies is now available in Italian translation as Spazi Pre-occupati: Una rimappatura delle migrazioni transnazionali e delle eredità coloniali italiane.

This pluri-awarded 2017 book came out in Italian in April 2021 in the series “Transiti” of the Mondadori Education/Le Monnier publisher. Mondadori Group is the largest book publisher in Italy and one of the leading European media companies focused on the diffusion of ideas and culture. Le Monnier was acquired by Mondadori to serve as the academic branch of the Mondadori Education department, devoted to publications for all the levels of the education system, as well as teaching and training.

Teresa Fiore (author, on the right) and Eva Allione (translator, on the left)

By linking Italy’s long history of emigration to all continents in the world, contemporary transnational migrations directed toward it, as well as the country’s colonial legacies, Fiore’s book poses Italy as a unique laboratory to rethink national belonging at large in our era of massive demographic mobility as well as to re-design the discipline of Italian Studies within a mobility-based and translingual vision. Through an interdisciplinary cultural approach that embraces literature, film, music, and non-fiction from countries as diverse as Argentina, France, Ethiopia, Romania, the U.S., and Italy, the book finds traces of globalization in a past that may hold interesting lessons about inclusiveness for the present.

Translated by Eva Allione, the book is a full translation of the original version published by Fordham University Press, except for updated data on contemporary migrations based on recent surveys and censuses. The cover of the book was also changed: it now features a photograph by Dawit L. Petros, titled “Spazio Disponibile. Untitled (Overlapping and intertwined territories that fall from view II), Catania, Italy.”

The book was presented at:
– The University of Palermo on May 28, 2021
– The University of Turin/Centro Altreitalie on July 15, 2021
– Isola, Catania on July 22, 2021 
Valle dei Templi, Agrigento on July 28, 2021

See also articles and reviews

See also Book description, prizes and reviews  

Teresa Fiore and other talk panelist pose for a photo with a red wall as backdrop

 

Book presentation at the University of Palermo (May 28, 2021): from the left, Prof. Laura Restuccia (moderator), Prof. Teresa Fiore (author), Prof. Floriana DIiGesù (co-organizer) and Prof. Assunta Polizzi (co-organizer).

Panelists sit on chairs on stage at Teresa Fiore book presentation at University of Turin

 

Book presentation at the University of Turin (July 15, 2021): from the left, Eva Allione (translator), Teresa Fiore (author), Maddalena Tirabassi (co-presenter) and Francesco Pongiluppi (conference organizer). 

Book presentation at Isola, cultural and co-working space in Catania (July 22, 2021): Cono Cinquemani (writer, moderator) on the left, Teresa Fiore (author) on the right.

 

Book presentation at Isola, cultural and co-working space in Catania (July 22, 2021): Cono Cinquemani (writer, moderator) on the left, Teresa Fiore (author) on the right.  

Teresa Fiore and moderator Enzo Russo sit outside with microphones at a book talk event

 

Book presentation at Casa Barbadoro in the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, a UNESCO site (July 28, 2021): Enzo Russo (writer, moderator) on the left, Teresa Fiore (author) on the right.