'Bad Girls' in the 1970s and 1990s : Female Desire and Experimentalism in Italian Women's Writing

Abstract

This essay examines a strand of 1970s Italian narratives which combines the linguistic and formal experimentation of 1960s neo-avant-garde with a critique of capitalist bourgeois ideology that silenced women characteristic of 1970s 'feminist realist' writing. The work of Alice Ceresa, Leila Baiardo and Silvana Castelli demonstrates that both strands of 1970s women's narrative initiated the process of writing female desire which has been a fundamental concern of women writers ever since. The essay hypothesizes the existence of a line of Italian anti-realist women's writing originating in the 1960s and 1970s and finding its point of arrival in 1990s youth narrative.