Jewish Italian Literature before Primo Levi and Giorgio Bassani.

Primo Levi and Giorgio Bassani represent two of the most prominent Jewish voices of the Italian modern literary tradition, recognized both nationally and internationally. Their literary portrayals of Jewish life and of the tragic experience of the Shoah have undoubtedly marked a new era in the representation of Jewish Italians. Little critical attention, however, has been paid to other Jewish Italian writers from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This essay aims to provide a first mapping of nineteenth-century Jewish Italian writers, while arguing the importance of studying Italy's Shoah narratives within the context of not only Fascism, but also of nineteenth-century Jewish history and the literature produced during the complex process of Jewish integration in post-unification Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]