Romanica. / Zurück zum Realen

Reference to a single discourse - that of postmodernism - no longer suffices as a means to sum up the contemporary Italian book market. Rather, we see a renewed tendency towards literary realism, that is to say 'serious' literature that aspires to represent and criticize a current extratextual world by narrating factual events or plausible occurrences. However, realistic literature is literature nonetheless and, by that token, art; it can take on metaphorical, symbolist or self-referential character in order to optimise strategies of depiction, achieve new insights or give voice to poetological problems. This study analyses the different manifestations of these tendencies on the basis of examples drawn from the works of Ammaniti, Desiati and Saviano.