‘We are broken in two’. Motherhood and uprooting in Ardone, Carati and Postorino

Abstract

This article aims to analyse three contemporary Italian novels with a historical setting: Viola Ardone’s Il treno dei bambini (2019), Alessandra Carati’s first novel E poi saremo salvi (2021), and Rosella Postorino’s Mi limitavo ad amare te (2023). Motherhood, migration and uprooting are at the centre of these texts that, on the one hand, fulfil a function of memory and redemption, helping to bring little-known historical events to light and giving voice to the last of history; on the other, they are narratives of resistance. They reflect an ethical and reparative conception of literature, that is, the desire to make the novel a tool for healing the wounds and traumas of history (Gefen 2017).