Forging Transnational Identities in Italian American Chick Lit: The Novels of Adriana Trigiani and the Ethnic Bildungsroman

Abstract

The highly successful writing career of Italian American author Adriana Trigiani is examined from the perspective of diaspora theory and transnational studies to reveal how the abiding value of her work lies in its ability to offer a provocative new model of the ethnic Bildungsroman, or novel of education. This essay probes the seemingly facile label of “Chick Lit” often applied to Trigiani's work to redefine the genre as a dynamic site of ethnic women's empowerment, one that invites women to rediscover their salient role in the Italian American landscape. By highlighting the agency that has been heretofore invisible in the life stories of our first-generation immigrant great-grandmothers and grandmothers working as seamstresses and shoemakers, Trigiani inspires new generations of Italian American women, now pharmacists and writers, to take up the mantle of their forebears to become engaged, proactive members of society, always infused with the best traditions of Italian diaspora sisterhood.