California Italian Studies

This essay focuses on the fascinating case of Juó Bananére, a comic writer of the Italian diaspora in Brazil, to propose an experiment in how literary historians might conceive of Italian Literature from perspectives immanent to Italy’s various global interactions. By approaching Bananére, a non-Italian, outside of Italy, who chose to write as though he were Italian, in a language only an Italian immigrant could have realistically spoken, this essay offers one such perspective.