Immigrant Autobiography in the United States - (VIA Folios) by William Boelhower (Paperback)

About the Book

"First published in Italy in 1982 and available to only a handful of scholars in the US, Boelhower's classic study Immigrant Autobiography in the United States led the way in identifying a new text-type that helped to reconfigure the rich but culturally narrow tradition of life-writing in the United States. A pioneer text in advocating the recognition and inclusion of multiethnic literatures in the WASP heavy literary canon, Immigrant Autobiography helped to enlarge the pantheon of representative American lives. This revised and enlarged edition also includes a new introduction tracing an Italian-American women's autobiographical tradition that compares favorably to that of other ethnic groups"--

Book Synopsis

First published in Italy in 1982 and available to only a handful of scholars in the US, Boelhower's classic study Immigrant Autobiography in the United States led the way in identifying a new text-type that helped to reconfigure the rich but culturally narrow tradition of life-writing in the United States. A pioneer text in advocating the recognition and inclusion of multiethnic literatures in the WASP heavy literary canon, Immigrant Autobiography helped to enlarge the pantheon of representative American lives. This revised and enlarged edition also includes a new introduction tracing an Italian-American women's autobiographical tradition that compares favorably to that of other ethnic groups.

Review Quotes

The republication of William Boelhower's Immigrant Autobiography shines a new spotlight on a brilliant and essential work, one that frames a discussion of Italian American lifestories with a sweeping and penetrating survey of the larger field of American autobiography. Supported by a scaffolding of immigration history, literary theory, and Boelhower's fluency in Italian and other languages, Immigrant Autobiography returns to assist us as we grapple with the continuing-and often invigorating-literary records of aspiration and movement charted by new generations.

-John Wharton Lowe, Calypso Magnolia:

The Crosscurrents of Caribbean and Southern Literature

I had always hoped to see a new edition of William Boelhower's Immigrant Autobiography in the United States and here it is! A groundbreaking study of immigrant autobiography when it was first published, this revised and enlarged edition continues to impress with an additional chapter on Leonard Covello's The Heart is the Teacher. A superb and incisive account of Italian immigrants' encounter with a nativist America, Boelhower examines the collective and polyphonic voices that emerged from experiences of immigration to the United States during the great migration of late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries . . . A gifted writer with a broad and inclusive sensibility, Boelhower continues to advance the study of autobiography and enhances cross-cultural interchanges between Italy and America.

-Mary Jo Bona, Women Writing Cloth:

Migratory Fictions in the American Imaginary