Marinette Pendola writes about history, customs and traditions of the Italians migrants in Tunisia. In Italian with English translation.

Born in Tunis to parents of Sicilian origin, Marinette Pendola writes about history, customs, and traditions of the Italian community of Tunisia, a diaspora resulting from migrations in the Mediterranean region. 

The North African country has long been at the center of her studies and writing and in her novel La riva lontana, Sellerio, 2000, she leads us into the folds of something that she knows well, the 'reverse' migration, that effort of “mixing” in a foreign land which, however welcome it is, always remains foreign.

Her novel La traversata del deserto (2014), L'erba di vento (2016), and Lunga è la notte are published by Arkadia. 

She is a member of the research group "Memory Project" promoted by the Italian Embassy of Tunis. In this context, she explored some issues such as language, nutrition, work of Sicilian peasants in Tunisia. She is the author of The Italians of Tunisia. History of a community (19th-20th century), for "The Notebooks of the Museum of Emigration" of Gualdo Tadino, 2007.

She is the author of short stories published in Italy and abroad, of which two, Fino al bivio and  A respectable lady winners of the competition.

She is the curator of the website Italiani di Tunisia which she created personally. She is deputy director of the magazine Jourdelò, published by the Cultural Association 8 hundred. She conducts writing workshops in the city of Bologna, where she resides.

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Presented by Caffè Culturale—this event was organized in collaboration with Portland State University’s Italian Studies Department.