The Metropolises and the Disenchantment of the World. The Representation of Gentrification in Vincenzo Latronico’s Novels

Abstract

In recent years, in most Italian cities, major urban redevelopment projects have been launched in an attempt to brand the metropolitan spaces, to raise the quality standards of the regenerated environments, and to adapt them to the international canons of a homogenized urban style. Gentrification processes redraw the map of cities, disrupt the identities of urban communities, determine an increase in the real estate value of the “regenerated” neighborhood and the surrounding ones, and push the weakest services and activities to the outskirts of the city, as well as the less economically competitive social strata. Our interest is to analyze the representation of this phenomenon in Italian contemporary literature, especially in the works of Vincenzo Latronico, focusing attention on the socio-cultural effects and existential implications that this new space dominated by the late capitalist discourse provokes on the inhabitants of the city.