Photographs and Family Narratives in Marilena Umuhoza Delli’s Negretta. Baci razzisti and Pizza Mussolini

The article investigates the role of photographs in rearticulating family dynamics in Marilena Umuhoza Delli’s Negretta. Baci razzisti (2020) and Pizza Mussolini (2023). The two books narrate the story of Marilena, a young Italian-Rwandan woman, and, in the case of Pizza Mussolini, also of her half-sister Luna. Marilena discovers the existence of Luna through a photograph that her father, Giuseppe, a former missionary priest, has kept hidden. Luna, the daughter of Giuseppe and a Malawian woman, uses photographs to find out more about her father, whom she has only met once. Through the examination of these photos, specifically of their referent, their materiality, their placing, and their social lives, the article explores the ways in which photographs, as ekphrastic presences in the texts, prompt the protagonists to listen to them and to the story they tell. This practice of listening will eventually compel the protagonists to intervene, questioning the knowledge of their family and redefining their role within it.