Archives and Autobiographical Writings of Italian Women in Publishing (xxth C.). Introduction

The special issue Archives and Autobiographical Writings of Italian Women in Publishing (XXth C.) offers a reflection on the sources for studying women’s participation in literary culture and book production in 20th Italy. In particular, it considers the archives organised by intellectual women (writers, publishers, and publishing collaborators) and their autobiographical writings, understanding the latter in a broad sense that includes true memoirs, diaries, and autobiographical novels. As numerous studies have shown, the concept of ‘autobiography’ has fluid boundaries and often becomes ‘a literary space where a woman can experiment with the construction of a female ‘I’ and, sometimes, a feminist identity’. As the essays presented here demonstrate, the sources collected in cultural archives not only bring to light the traces – often buried or marginalised – of the activities of numerous women engaged in various roles within the twentieth-century Italian publishing industry but also, and more importantly, reveal the value these sources hold for the construction of their identity.