Tensioni verso il reale tra testimonianza e autorappresentazione

The essay aims to analyze the texts Figlia di una vestaglia blu by Simona Baldanzi and Parigi è un desiderio by Andrea Inglese in light of the concept of the «return to reality», introduced by Raffaele Donnarumma in 2008. In particular, it will explore the connotations that the memoir genre assumes in both cases. In the first case, we will examine how this genre is hybridized with the novel and reportage, taking on characteristics that are not documentary in nature and that stem from an oblique narrative perspective. In the second case, we will analyze the text’s relationship to the genre, while also considering the peculiarities – including genetic ones – of certain textual sections. If the movement of memory represented by Baldanzi will be looked at as an attempt to give narrative space to the experience of the workers with whom the protagonist lives and interacts, the one depicted by Inglese will be considered as the implementation of critical practice by a cultural worker on himself. In both cases, the attempt to give voice to one’s own experience of the world will be seen as foundational, placing the two works within a panorama where literature renews its tension with reality.