BIO
In the last 25 years I have built a diversified cultural and professional experience across many borders and five continents – I still have to do my stint in Antarctica!
In everyday life, I am a cultural analyst, independent writer and literary translator.
On a day-to-day basis, I change hats frequently.
I was born and grew up in Liguria, Italy by the sea; later on, I lived in London (1983), Moscow (1984-1985), Boston (1986-1987), Johannesburg (1997-2000), Melbourne (2009) and Adelaide (2010-2013). After obtaining a Master's in Modern Languages from the University of Genoa, Italy and a PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of South Australia, in 2013 I relocated with my husband and children to Vancouver. I am a proud citizen of Italy, Australia and Canada.
World literature, transcultural practices (in particular, translation and film adaptation), and global mobility are my main areas of interest and research, but I have always kept alive my true passions: creative writing and creative reading.
My transcultural novel The Afrikaner (Guernica, Toronto, 2019) is inspired by the five years I spent in the South Africa as an international reporter. I have also published several books on the socio-cultural impact of global mobility and digital technologies. Among them: Transcultural Writers and Novels in the Age of Global Mobility (Purdue UP, 2015), I nuovi nomadi (New Nomads, 1996): a contribution to the definition of the concept of neonomadism in existential and socio-cultural terms; Uoma. La fine dei sessi (Wo/Man Machine. The End of Genders, 2000): an exploration of the hybridization of gender roles and the growing interdependence between humans and machines; and Jesus Christ Cyberstar. At the Origins of the Internet (2009): a pamphlet on the birth of the World Wide Web and its emerging but eventually disavowed values of equality, transparency and fairness.
See here a list of my latest publications, including the creative nonfiction
The Istanbul Quintet and the collections of poems Seaborn Eyes (Ekstasis) and To Die Like a Poem. The Ballad of a Soldier-Bard in Times of War (Ekstasis).
Between 2017 and 2019 I was a SSHCR postdoctoral recipient at the University of Ottawa (School of Translation), where I conducted research on bilingual writers as self-translators.
I've taught for 15 years at the University of British Columbia in the Italian Studies program
and I'm currently the Cultural Events Coordinator of the the Dante Alighieri Society of BC. I am a co-founder, together with Dr. Stefano Gulmanelli, of Nomads CA – Culture Lab (translation, communication & consultancy services) Nomads IT (now defunct) and the Substack bilingual (EN/IT) newsletter Canadiensis. Letters from Canada.
I am a Member of: the Writers’ Union of Canada, the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada, the Professional Order of Journalists in Italy, the Society of Translators and Interpreters of British Columbia (STIBC), the Australian National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI), and the Society of Italian Researchers and Professionals in Western Canada (ARPICO).
I acknowledge being a settler in Vancouver on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.