Gli scrittori e il “complesso militare-letterario”. Un’introduzione alla letteratura americana sulle guerre del nuovo millennio

Since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and the attack on Iraq, a plethora of novels, short stories, and memoirs by both combatants and journalists have appeared. The essay traces a tentative map of this literary production. In particular, it explores to what extent— as several critics have pointed out—US writers might have been following, however unwittingly, the dictates of a “military-literary complex”, thus failing to offer a fair and engaging representation of the peoples whose lands the American army invaded. The essay is divided in three parts. The first discusses memoirs and autobiographical accounts. The second, war journalism, while the third is devoted to fiction.