Da Rider Haggard a Salgari :riscrivere l’Africa nell’era dei colonialismi.

Abstract

My essay presents a critical overview of some major novels on Africa written by Italy’s greatest adventure novelist, Emilio Salgari (1862-1911). I shall analyze how Salgari portrays Africa and the Africans in the era of colonial expansion and Imperialism, in La favorita del Mahdi, an exciting instant book set around the jihadist revolt in Sudan, in I drammi della schiavitù, a vivid and adventurous tale of the horrors of the slave trade, and finally in his personal rewriting of King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard, Le caverne dei diamanti.

Keywords

• Emilio Salgari; Italian literature
• colonial literature on Africa
• comparative literature
• adventure novels
• Joseph Conrad
• Henry Rider Haggard