Collective biographies and transnational history in Primavere e autunni, Chinamen and La macchina zerø

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article investigates three comic books written and illustrated by Ciaj Rocchi and Matteo Demonte, namely Primavere e autunni [Springs and autumns] (2015), Chinamen. Un secolo di cinesi a Milano [Chinamen. A century of Chinese people in Milan] (2017), and La macchina zerø. Mario Tchou e il primo computer Olivetti [Machine zero. Mario Tchou and the first Olivetti computer] (2021). The three texts provide graphic accounts of the establishment of a Chinese community in Italy using biographic narrations. The article analyses the three comics and their paratextual apparatuses, focusing on the authors’ documentarist approach, the ways in which personal biographies are embedded in the story of Italy’s resident Chinese community and in the history of Italy, and finally on the comics’ intergenerational and diasporic testimonial value. Drawing on Hirsch’s articulation of postmemory, on Mickwitz’s analysis of comics as documentaries and archives, and on Nabizadeh’s emphasis on comics as alternate narratives and memories, the article argues that Rocchi and Demonte’s comic books while narrating private stories provide a visual representation of the history of modern Italy as grounded in transnational connections and are inherently multicultural.