Abstract:
This thesis is a comparative study of Italian travel narratives on China by writers,
journalists and politicians between the years of fascism and the international decline of
communism. Via an extended analysis of the typology of representations produced in four periods
(1925-1945, 1949-1960, 1966-1975, 1976-1985), I argue that the “Chinas” narrated by those
authors always had a political and referential validity. By addressing the nature of the processes
of self-identification implicitly and explicitly expressed in the depictions of the country, I argue
that through their works the authors promoted their political ideologies and political affiliations -
fascism, anti-fascism, communism and anti-communism. At the same time, I argue the textual
validity of the “Chinas” represented, since the authors studied all conceptualized their different
portrayals by combining both the real and the imaginary, in accordance to their own beliefs,
expectations and political engagement. I, therefore, suggest that the relevance of the selected travel
narratives resides most importantly in their agency in the Italian process of national and cultural
identification, as well as of self-assertion in the specific cultural, political, social traits of Italy and
Italian culture and politics. In addition, the discursive practices involved in the act of representing
China as the Other are offered from a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives, taking
into account both the post-structuralist critique and the Marxist-inspired anti-colonial theory. As I
argue in the thesis, the representation of China in twentieth century Italian travel writing is a unique
case that has not been previously analysed at length by scholars.
