Igiaba Scego
Igiaba Scego | |
---|---|
Scego speaking at Festivaletteratura. | |
Born | (1974-03-20) 20 March 1974 (age 50) Rome, Italy |
Alma mater | La Sapienza University of Rome Roma Tre University |
Occupation(s) | Writer, journalist and activist |
Family | Ali Omar Scego, father; Soraya Omar-Scego, niece |
Awards | Premio Mondello |
Igiaba Scego (born 20 March 1974)[1] is an Italian writer, journalist, and activist.
Biography
Igiaba Scego was born in Rome, Italy, in 1974, after her parents were forced to flee Somalia following the 1969 coup d'état of Siad Barre; Scego's father, Ali Omar Scego, was a Somali politician, and her great-grandfather, Omar, was a translator for Rodolfo Graziani.[2][3] She graduated in Foreign Literature at La Sapienza University of Rome and obtained a PhD in pedagogy at Roma Tre University. Presently, she is writing about and researching cultural dialogue and migration.
Works
She writes for various magazines dealing with migrant literature and African literature, such as Latinoamerica, Carta, El Ghibli and Migra. Her works include autobiographical references, and they depict the delicate balance between her two cultural realities, the Italian and Somali.
In 2003, she won the Eks & Tra prize for migrant writers with her story "Salsicce", and published her debut novel, La nomade che amava Alfred Hitchcock. In 2006, she attended the Literature festival in Mantua.
Scego collaborates with newspapers such as La Repubblica and Il manifesto and contributes to the magazine Nigrizia[4] with an opinion column, titled "The colors of Eve". In 2007, along with Ingy Mubiayi, she edited the short-story collection Quando nasci è una roulette. Giovani figli di migranti si raccontano. It follows the story of seven boys and girls of African origin, who were born in Rome of foreign parents or came to Italy when young.
In 2011, she won the Premio Mondello with her book La mia casa è dove sono, which was published the previous year by Rizzoli. In 2017, her novel Adua was translated into English by Jamie Richards,[5] and in 2019, Aaron Robertson translated her book Oltre Babilonia, again into English, with the title Beyond Babylon. Reviewing it for the Los Angeles Review of Books, Kelsey McFaul wrote: "Rather than suggesting that 'beyond Babylon' is a destination, the novel expresses the material and relational afterlives of resilience, anti-colonization, and collective racial solidarity in the present. Scego's genius is to scale from the international to the intimate, from memory and materiality to music, mothers, and menstruation, the 'rhythm that transports me into a cosmic chaos that appears to be my own.'"[6]
Seago's 2020 novel, La linea del colore, combines the characters of Edmonia Lewis and Sarah Parker Remond and is dedicated to Rome and to these two African-American women who lived in the city during the 19th century.[7][8]
Bibliography
- La nomade che amava Alfred Hitchcock, Rome: Edizioni Sinnos, 2003.
- Rhoda, Rome: Edizioni Sinnos, 2004.
- Pecore nere. Racconti with Gabriela Kuruvilla, Ingy Mubiayi, Laila Wadia, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2005.
- (Edited with Ingy Mubiayi) Quando nasci è una roulette. Giovani figli di migranti si raccontano, Edizioni Terre di Mezzo, 2007.
- Amori Bicolori. Racconti, Roma, Edizioni Laterza, 2007.
- Oltre Babilonia, Donzelli Editore, 2008. English translation (by Aaron Robertson): Beyond Babylon, Two Lines Press, 2019.
- L'albero in Nessuna Pietà, Salani editore, 2009.
- La mia casa è dove sono, Rizzoli, 2010. Libro autobiografico che descrive una famiglia dispersa tra Somalia, Gran Bretagna e Italia.[9]
- Roma Negata, with Rino Bianchi. Ediesse, 2014.
- Adua, Giunti, 2015. Translated into English by Jamie Richard, New Vessel Press, 2017, ISBN 978-1939931450.
- La linea del colore, Bompiani, 2020. Translated into English by John Cullen and Gregory Conti, Other Press LLC, 2022, ISBN 9781635420869.
- Cassandra a Mogadiscio, Bompiani, 2023.
English translations
- Adua. Translated by Jamie Richards. New Vessel Press, 2017.
- Beyond Babylon. Translated by Aaron Robertson. Two Lines Press, 2019.
- The Color Line. Translated by John Cullen and Gregory Conti, Other Press LLC, 2022, ISBN 9781635420869.
References
- ^ "Rimappare l'Italia. Incontro con la scrittrice Igiaba Scego" (PDF). Quaderno Culturale Queens College Italian Program Newsletter (Spring): 3–4. 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 August 2016. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
- ^ Scego, Igiaba (Autumn 2019). "Not One Less". World Literature Today. Translated by Aaron Robertson. Retrieved 26 March 2022.
- ^ "Igiaba Scego biog, Institute of Modern Language Research". Archived from the original on 3 May 2016. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
- ^ Igiaba Sciego at Nigrizia.
- ^ Roshanian, Yasmin (6 July 2017). "Adua by Igiaba Scego". Europe Now. Retrieved 26 March 2022.
- ^ McFaul, Kelsey (27 December 2019). "Fractured and Fluid Identity: On Igiaba Scego's 'Beyond Babylon'". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 26 March 2022.
- ^ Grasso, Gabriella (27 May 2020). "Today's must-read is Afro-Italian and talks about two women's stories, between the US and Italy". Elle. Translated by Alessio Colonnelli. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
- ^ Riccò, Giulia (7 December 2020). "Reimagining Italy Through Black Women's Eyes". Public Books. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
- ^ "A Review of La mia casa è dove sono" (PDF). Quaderno Culturale Queens College Italian Program Newsletter (5, Spring). 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 August 2016. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
Further reading
- Simone Brioni. The Somali Within. Language, Race and Belonging in 'Minor' Italian Literature. Cambridge: Legenda, 2015.
External links
- Her voice at Festival di Letteratura of Mantova on 6 September 2008 morning and afternoon.
- "Igiaba Scego", Festivaletteratura.
- [1]
- "Stories Without Borders: A Conversation with Igiaba Scego" (2020, June 17). Interview with Candice Whitney and Stefano Albertini (NYU).
- v
- t
- e
- Bartolo Cattafi (1975)
- Achille Campanile (1976)
- Günter Grass (1977)
- Denise McSmith (1975)
- Stefano D'Arrigo (1977)
- Yury Trifonov (1978)
- Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz (1979)
- Pietro Consagra (1980)
- Ignazio Buttitta, Angelo Maria e Ela Ripellino (1983)
- Leonardo Sciascia (1985)
- Wang Meng (1987)
- Mikhail Gorbachev (1988)
- Peter Carey, José Donoso, Northrop Frye, Jorge Semprún, Wole Soyinka, Lu Tongliu (1990)
- Fernanda Pivano (1992)
- Associazione Scrittori Cinesi (1993)
- Dong Baoucum, Fan Boaci, Wang Huanbao, Shi Peide, Chen Yuanbin (1995)
- Xu Huainzhong, Xiao Xue, Yu Yougqnan, Qin Weinjung (1996)
- Khushwant Singh (1997)
- Javier Marías (1998)
- Francesco Burdin (2001)
- Luciano Erba (2002)
- Isabella Quarantotti De Filippo (2003)
- Marina Rullo (2006)
- Andrea Ceccherini (2007)
- Enrique Vila-Matas (2009)
- Francesco Forgione (2010)
- Carmelo Samonà (1978)
- Fausta Garavini (1979)
- Giovanni Giuga (1978)
- Gilberto Sacerdoti (1979)
- Milan Kundera (1978)
- N. Scott Momaday (1979)
- Juan Carlos Onetti (1980)
- Tadeusz Konwicki (1981)
- Jannis Ritsos (1978)
- Joseph Brodsky (1979)
- Juan Gelman (1980)
- Gyula Illyés (1981)
- Valerio Magrelli (1980)
- Ferruccio Benzoni, Stefano Simoncelli, Walter Valeri, Laura Mancinelli (1981)
- Jolanda Insana (1982)
- Daniele Del Giudice (1983)
- Aldo Busi (1984)
- Elisabetta Rasy, Dario Villa (1985)
- Marco Lodoli, Angelo Mainardi (1986)
- Marco Ceriani, Giovanni Giudice (1987)
- Edoardo Albinati, Silvana La Spina (1988)
- Andrea Canobbio, Romana Petri (1990)
- Anna Cascella (1991)
- Marco Caporali, Nelida Milani (1992)
- Silvana Grasso, Giulio Mozzi (1993)
- Ernesto Franco (1994)
- Roberto Deidier (1995)
- Giuseppe Quatriglio, Tiziano Scarpa (1996)
- Fabrizio Rondolino (1997)
- Alba Donati (1998)
- Paolo Febbraro (1999)
- Evelina Santangelo (2000)
- Giuseppe Lupo (2001)
- Giovanni Bergamini, Simona Corso (2003)
- Adriano Lo Monaco (2004)
- Piercarlo Rizzi (2005)
- Francesco Fontana (2006)
- Paolo Fallai (2007)
- Luca Giachi (2008)
- Carlo Carabba (2009)
- Gabriele Pedullà (2010)
- Alain Robbe-Grillet (1982) • Thomas Bernhard (1983) • Adolfo Bioy Casares (1984) • Bernard Malamud (1985) • Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1986) • Doris Lessing (1987) • V. S. Naipaul (1988) • Octavio Paz (1989) • Christa Wolf (1990) • Kurt Vonnegut (1991) • Bohumil Hrabal (1992) • Seamus Heaney (1993) • J. M. Coetzee (1994) • Vladimir Voinovich (1995) • David Grossman (1996) • Philippe Jaccottet (1998) • Don DeLillo (1999) • Aleksandar Tišma (2000) • Nuruddin Farah (2001) • Per Olov Enquist (2002) • Adunis (2003) • Les Murray (2004) • Magda Szabó (2005) • Uwe Timm (2006) • Bapsi Sidhwa (2007) • Viktor Yerofeyev (2009) • Edmund White (2010) • Javier Cercas (2011) • Elizabeth Strout (2012) • Péter Esterházy (2013) • Joe R. Lansdale (2014) • Emmanuel Carrère (2015) • Marilynne Robinson (2016) • Cees Nooteboom (2017)
- Alberto Moravia (1982)
- Vittorio Sereni alla memoria (1983)
- Italo Calvino (1984)
- Mario Luzi (1985)
- Paolo Volponi (1986)
- Luigi Malerba (1987)
- Oreste del Buono (1988)
- Giovanni Macchia (1989)
- Gianni Celati, Emilio Villa (1990)
- Andrea Zanzotto (1991)
- Ottiero Ottieri (1992)
- Attilio Bertolucci (1993)
- Luigi Meneghello (1994)
- Fernando Bandini, Michele Perriera (1995)
- Nico Orengo (1996)
- Giuseppe Bonaviri, Giovanni Raboni (1997)
- Carlo Ginzburg (1998)
- Alessandro Parronchi (1999)
- Elio Bartolini (2000)
- Roberto Alajmo (2001)
- Andrea Camilleri (2002)
- Andrea Carraro, Antonio Franchini, Giorgio Pressburger (2003)
- Maurizio Bettini, Giorgio Montefoschi, Nelo Risi (2004)
- pr. Raffaele Nigro, sec. Maurizio Cucchi, ter. Giuseppe Conte (2005)
- pr. Paolo Di Stefano, sec. Giulio Angioni (2006)
- pr. Mario Fortunato, sec. Toni Maraini, ter. Andrea Di Consoli (2007)
- pr. Andrea Bajani, sec. Antonio Scurati, ter. Flavio Soriga (2008)
- pr. Mario Desiati, sec. Osvaldo Guerrieri, ter. Gregorio Scalise (2009)
- pr. Lorenzo Pavolini, sec. Roberto Cazzola, ter. (2010)
- pr. Eugenio Baroncelli, sec. Milo De Angelis, ter. Igiaba Scego (2011)
- pr. Edoardo Albinati, sec. Paolo Di Paolo, ter. Davide Orecchio (2012)
- pr. Andrea Canobbio, sec. Valerio Magrelli, ter. Walter Siti (2013)
- pr. Irene Chias, sec. Giorgio Falco, ter. Francesco Pecoraro (2014)
- pr. Nicola Lagioia, sec. Letizia Muratori, ter. Marco Missiroli (2015)
- pr. Marcello Fois, sec. Emanuele Tonon, ter. Romana Petri (2016)
- pr. Stefano Massini, sec. Alessandro Zaccuri, ter. Alessandra Sarchi (2017)
- Kōbō Abe, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Germaine Greer, Wilson Harris, José Saramago (1992)
- Kenzaburō Ōe (1993)
- Stephen Spender (1994)
- Thomas Keneally, Alberto Arbasino (1996)
- Margaret Atwood, André Brink, David Malouf, Romesh Gunesekera, Christoph Ransmayr (1997)
- Dacia Maraini (1999)
- Alberto Arbasino (2000)
- Nino De Vita (2003)
- Attilio Lolini (2005)
- Roberto Rossi Precerotti (2006)
- Silvia Bre (2007)
- Tiziano Scarpa (2009)
- Michela Murgia (2010)
- Eugenio Baroncelli (2011)
- Davide Orecchio (2012)
- Valerio Magrelli (2013)
- Giorgio Falco (2014)
- Marco Missiroli (2015)
- Romana Petri (2016)
- Stefano Massini (2017)
- Ibrahim al-Koni (2009)
- Emmanuele Maria Emanuele (2010)
- Antonio Calabrò (2011)
- Antonio Riccardi (2010)
- Evgenij Solonovic (2010)
- Gialuigi Beccaria e Marco Paolini (2010)
- Marzio Barbagli (2010)
- Kim Thúy (2011)
- Claudia Durastanti (2011)
- Edoardo Albinati (2012)
- Alessandro Zaccuri (2017)
- Enzo Sellerio (2011)
- Salvatore Silvano Nigro (2012)
- Maurizio Bettini (2013)
- Enrico Testa (2014)
- Ermanno Cavazzoni (2015)
- Serena Vitale (2016)
- Antonio Prete (2017)
- Simona Gioè (2012)
- Marina Valensise (2013)
- Gipi (2014)