Co-sponsored by European Studies, Department of French and Italian, Center for Visual Culture and Performance Studies with generous support from Anonymous Fund.
Italian-Ethiopian writer, musician, and performer Gabriella Ghermandi will be on campus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a series of events from September 27 to October 1, 2025. The themes addressed in Ghermandi’s events engage with questions of representation of Italian, Mediterranean and African history, the impact of Fascism and colonialism/post-colonialism, issues of identity and diaspora, the history of Italian racial laws and legislation on migration/immigration, racial discrimination, and the creative engagement of contemporary literary writers, musicians, and performers with these pressing issues and themes.
This narrative performance is based on Ghermandi’s novel Regina di Fiori e di perle (Donzelli, 2007) / Queen of Flowers and Pearls (Indiana UP, 2017). The novel rotates around the figure of Mahlet, a young Ethiopian girl with a gift for storytelling, who is inspired by the elderly Yacob who tells her stories of Ethiopians who fought in the resistance against the Italian occupation of Ethiopia. Mahlet will become the keeper and the teller of stories through time and space between Africa and Europe. In this narrative performance, Gabriella Ghermandi, like the “cantora” Mahlet of her novel Queen of Flowers and Pearls, presents the oral storytelling of Ethiopians fighting against Italian colonial occupation during Italian Fascism and then takes us on a journey from Ethiopia to Italy afterwards. The performance is a retelling of the history of Ethiopian resistance, stories of people, and songs with readings, monologues and songs by the “cantora” Gabriella Ghermandi.
Gabriella Ghermandi was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1965, and moved to Bologna (her father’s hometown) at the age of 14. Ghermandi’s writings (fiction and plays) and performances (readings, monologues, concerts) reflect on the political histories of Ethiopia and Italy during Italian colonialism, including personal history and stories — beginning in the period of Italian Fascism when Ghermandi’s family experienced Italian racial laws and discrimination. Ghermandi’s first novel, Regina di fiori e di perle was published in 2007, and the English translation Queen of Flowers and Pearls was published in 2015 by Indiana University Press. Her novel Queen of Flowers and Pearls narrates many stories collected by the female protagonist, the “cantora” Mahlet, within the historical context of Italy and Ethiopia starting in 1935. Ghermandi also writes about food and identity in relation specifically to the Ethiopian-Italian diaspora. Ghermandi is also a renowned performer of narratives, and her readings are usually accompanied by music and songs. She is also one of the co-founders of the world music group Atse Tewodros Project in which Ghermandi (vocals and narrator) explores the fusion of music and storytelling. Ghermandi’s recent album Maqeda (2024), the Amharic name for the Queen of Sheba, is an Ethiojazz album entirely dedicated to female figures of Ethiopian and African history and mythology as well as rituals of ethnic groups centered around women (each of the nine songs is an homage to a female figure). Maqeda features four different Ethiopian languages, including Amharic, Gamo (in “Boncho”), Gofa (in “Baranche”), and Kumana (in “Kotilidda”), and Ghermandi is the lead vocalist on all nine songs. In 1999, Ghermandi won the first prize for the Eks&Tra literary competition with her short story “Il telefono del quartiere” (“District Phone”), and, in 2001, she won the third prize the Eks&Tra literary competition with her short story “Quel certo temperamento focoso” (“That Certain Fiery Temperament”). Ghermandi is one of the co-founders of El Ghibli, an influential online journal of migrant literature. She has served as Art Director of the world music Evocamondi Festival in Bentivoglio, Italy. She has served on the jury of the 23rd Neustadt International Prize for Literature. She has been invited to speak and to perform at many other conferences and institutions in Italy and around the world.