Interviews with the Phoenix: Iterviews with Fifteen Italian-Quebecois Artists

Interviews/Art/Art Criticism. Translated from the French by Daniel Sloate, with an introduction and preface by Fulvio Caccia. Interviews with fifteen Italian-Quebecois artists, spanning three generations. Daniel Sloate, translator of the book, explains that the volume has a parallel structure: on one level it describes the careers of fifteen artists of Italian origin; on another level, invisible and subterranean, it depicts the life of the Italian community in Montreal which, instead of being interpreted, interprets, instead of being a passive object becomes a subject active in and through history... Including interviews with first-, second-, and third-generation Italian-Canadians-painters, writers, and musicians-all of whom in some overt way address issues of transculturation or cultural hybridity in their work, this volume explores both the specific circumstances of these fifteen artistic lives, the historical and contemporary ramifications of Italian immigration to Quebec, and more theoretical issues of art, et