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This paper compares the discursive and experiential valence of the two fullest autobiographical accounts of internment written by Australian Italians, that by Claudio Alcorso in The Wind You Say (1993) and that by Peter Dalseno (1994), both of whom were in Loveday from 1942 to 1944 (while Alcorso had been in Hay from June 1940). Beyond the shock of unmerited deprivation of liberty and the equally unmerited stigma of being defined as "enemy aliens", the experience of, and discourse on, internment of the two turns out very different, despite the relative closeness in age when detained. For Alcorso, a patrician from Rome, the internment experience is one of opening up to and enamourment with the world and with life - the Australian outback, working-class and other Australian Italians, human creativity - and the worst crisis comes with release. For Dalseno's alter ego, Peter Delano, raised in the Ingham area, the initial shock is worst, denying him his hard won Australian identity component, and internment represents an intensification of the sordidness of life outside, while release brings with it reacceptance into the wider Australian society. This study thus shows the diversity of ways in which a common history is experienced and discursively conveyed by individuals. [Author's abstract]
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 8 Dec 2014 10:29:30
http://nla.gov.au/nla.arc-24784-20120503-0000-ehlt.flinders.edu.au/deptlang/fulgor/volume3i3/papers/GattRutterv3i308.pdf
'You're on the List!' Writing the Australian Italian Experience of War-Time Internment
FULGOR
30-67
'You're on the List!' Writing the Australian Italian Experience of War-Time Internment
Subjects:
- The Wind You Say 1993 single work autobiography
- Sugar, Tears and Eyeties 1994 single work novel
- Enemy Aliens : The Internment of Italian Migrants in Australia during the Second World War 2005 anthology criticism
- The Shoe in my Cheese : An Immigrant Family Experience 1989 single work autobiography
- A Migrant's Story : The Struggle and Success of an Italian-Australian, 1920s-1960s 1963 single work autobiography
- Cammina Per Me, Elsie: l'Epopea di un Italiano Emigrato in Australia 2002 single work biography
- Never Give in : Three Italian Antifascist Exiles in Australia, 1924-1956 2007 single work biography
- Loveday, Barmera - Berri area, Riverlands, Murray - Mallee area, South Australia,
- 1940s
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