Fausta Cialente’s “Middle East” Through Anticolonialism and Antifascism in Egypt

Marchi, Alessandra

2024-01-01

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Abstract

The role of the allophone press in Egypt was particularly important for the circulation and elaboration of radical ideas and struggles from the end of the 19th century until the Second World War. During the 1940s, the Italian writer Fausta Cialente (1898–1994) published the independent magazine “Fronte Unito” (1943–46), which was intended to be an instrument of information and education for the development of the new Italian state after the fascist regime, and to critically think about class and gender divisions, labour and colonial exploitation and the life of the Italian colony in Egypt. All these elements are also present in Cialente’s literature, nourished by her life in Egypt between 1921 and 1947. This paper interrogates the links between the anti-fascist and pro-democracy political struggle and the anti-colonial views expressed in Cialente’s writings and militancy in a country where, according to the editors, the imperialist mentality reigned among all communities and influenced their power and subaltern relations.