Rhinos, Photographs and Earrings: Migrating Objects, Memories and Absences in Ali Farah’s Madre piccola (2007) and Scego’s La mia casa è dove sono (2010)

This chapter explores the role played by knick-knacks and photographs in two Italian postcolonial texts – namely, Cristina Ubah Ali Farah’s Madre piccola (2007) and Igiaba Scego’s La mia casa è dove sono (2010). It analyses three ways through which selected objects hold a home-making value. To this end, it firstly looks at how, by following their owners’ movements, objects become symbols of stability. It then explores how the objects that accompany their possessors in a journey of migration create a connection between different temporal and spatial dimensions. They act as mementoes, but they also embody migrants’ communal identity. Finally, the chapter looks at missing objects, at how their absence haunts their owners and prevents them from settling down.