Abstract

The essay revolves around a geocritical consideration of a recent body of narrative writings, dealing with the representation of social impact and private implications of the earthquake that in 2009 devastated the city of L’Aquila. Resonating with Arminio’s authoritative nonfictional survey of unreconciled Italian Southern villages, from the ’80s till nowadays, and furthermore sharing thematic concerns as well as stylistic devices with further narrative examples related to recent disasters, the corpus here described proves highly cohesive. From different poetics, different choices in terms of genre and narrative voice, such works, amid fiction and memoir, as Il terremoto di Sara, Gli 80 di Camporammaglia, Sopra e sotto la polvere, by absolute beginners (respectively, Ciambotti, Valentini, Chiappanuvoli), or Bella mia, by renowned novel writer Di Pietrantonio, along with a one-of-a-kind reportage, Gli spaesati, by Ferracuti and photographer Marrozzini, all bear witness to forms of exclusion and disorientation in the present, urban/social/moral fragmentation, expressing, on a more distinctly political plane, implicit claims or, quite the contrary, overt accusations.