Welsh Italian Literary Accounts of Internment in World War II: Les Servini's "A Boy from Bardi" and Hector Emanuelli's "A Sense of Belonging"

Unjustly neglected by academic criticism, Welsh Italian literary accounts of internment during World War Two are the product of non-professional writing which however supplement the meagre historical research on the Italian immigrant community in the Valleys. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on Les Servini’s A Boy from Bardi: My Life and Times (1994) and Hector Emanuelli’s A Sense of Belonging: From the Rhondda to the Potteries. Memories of a Welsh Italian Englishman (2010) while showing that the painful stories that they recount were written also to convey positive messages of strength and resilience. We believe it is now time for specialist and non-specialist readers to give them a complete social and cultural recognition.