The narrative of Italian colonialism in Ethiopia between history, sociology and literature.

For the past 80 years of Italian history, the phenomenon of Italian colonialism in East Africa has been characterized by a failure in Italian society to process the trauma inflicted on the colonized populations. The "missed funeral" by Italian institutions, triggered an altered narrative of those years in the consciousness of Italians. In recent years, however, a more objective and historically accurate narrative of the years of totalitarianism has resurfaced. The collective memories of Italians from the period of fascism onward have characterized much of the discriminatory and xenophobic mentality that can still be found today in the bel paese. Starting from the history of Italian colonialism in A.O.I., the proposed contribution aims to highlight how peoples remember and how the collective memory of a population differs from its historical memory. Consequently, it will also stress how the narrative put forward by the central powers, before and after the years of colonialism, gave back to the Italian population a distorted picture of the atrocities committed in Africa, particularly in Halie Selassie's Ethiopia. The analysis of the novel "The Shadow King" by ethiopian author Maaza Mengiste, which focus on the intersectional perspective of an Ethiopian woman toward the Italian colonization of the years 35/41, will serve as the paper's conclusion. Finally, the perspective of the colonized people will also be analyzed to give a 360° view on colonialism.