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African Plots in Italian Children's Literature: Eugenio Cherubini's Pinocchio in Affrica
- MLN
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volue 126, Number 1, January 2011 (Italian Issue)
- pp. 114-136
- 10.1353/mln.2011.0001
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
In Eugenio Cherubini's 1903 sequel to Collodi's masterpiece, illustrated by G. G. Bruno, the headstrong puppet swims to Africa to find riches. Published during Italy's emigration crisis, and in the shadow of failed colonial campaigns, Pinocchio in Affrica plays out issues central to the state's legitimacy. Targeting a precisely defined audience, the book plots these issues using a structure (home-away-home), moral (hard work and obedience), and protagonist that offer a comforting predictability. Cherubini's novel creates a familiar space in which readers could simultaneously indulge and disown illicit fantasies, and find more satisfying meaning in events that were humiliating to them.