African Plots in Italian Children's Literature: Eugenio Cherubini's Pinocchio in Affrica

In Eugenio Cherubini's 1903 sequel to Collodi's masterpiece, illustrated by G. G. Bruno, the headstrong puppet swims to Africa to find riches. Published during Italy's emigration crisis, and in the shadow of failed colonial campaigns, Pinocchio in Affrica plays out issues central to the state's legitimacy. Targeting a precisely defined audience, the book plots these issues using a structure (home-away-home), moral (hard work and obedience), and protagonist that offer a comforting predictability. Cherubini's novel creates a familiar space in which readers could simultaneously indulge and disown illicit fantasies, and find more satisfying meaning in events that were humiliating to them.