Chiaroscuro: Essays of Identity (Essay Series; No. 20)

Nonfiction. "I much admire this lively, lucid, and often extremely moving collection of essays. As part memoir, part social commentary, and part literary criticism, Helen Barolini's wonderful CHIAROSCURO seems to me not only profoundly original but also of crucial importance in helping establish both the existence and the contours of a set of Italian American traditions whose nature and significance are becoming increasingly clear. Whether remembering the repressions that shaped her complex cultural heritage (as in the poignant 'How I learned to speak Italian') or meditating on the continuing near-invisibility of that heritage (as in the feisty 'Writing to a Brick Wall'), Barolini offers key definitions as well as luminous descriptions of what it means to be an Italian American in every section of this book"--Sandra M. Gilbert, University of California, Davis.