William Demby's Rome and the Transnational 1960s

Abstract: The late African American author William Demby's writings in postwar Rome for the Italian cinema and for periodicals suffuse the experimental aesthetics of his semi-autobiographical 1965 novel The Catacombs ( Le catacombe , 1967) at the level of content, style, and form. This essay analyzes filmic and televisual elements that animate The Catacombs ' striking revision of protest art through its Black female protagonist Doris's relation to the image. Demby's own life narrative enters into a playful, metafictional relationship with that of his novel's narrator, "Bill Demby," an African American expatriate author writing a novel in Rome in the early Sixties and living with his Italian wife, who is also a writer. Again, this novel within The Catacombs revolves around an African American actress, Doris, who is working in Rome's film industry. Though The Catacombs is highly elliptical and does not provide detailed descriptors of Demby's Italian postwar cohorts, it notably alludes to several groundbreaking artists, including Demby's wife, writer Lucia Drudi, as well as Lorenza Mazzetti, Mimmo Rotella, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Alberto Moravia, among others. Demby's experimental approach to engaging transnational networks of affiliation figures 1960s Rome as a vital hub of daring cultural work and collaboration.