I am the author of the post-apartheid novel The Afrikaner (Guernica Editions, April 2019), inspired by the five years I spent in the southern African region as an international reporter. The story is an on-the-road adventure that covers the terrain of love, race and science under the African sky. Also in audiobook format.
In everyday life I am an academic lecturer, independent writer and literary translator. I change hats frequently and this suits me well: I never get bored.
In the last 30 years I have built a diversified cultural and professional experience across many borders and five continents. I was born and raised in Liguria, Italy by the sea; later on, I lived in London (1983), Moscow (1984-1985), Boston (1986-1987), Johannesburg (1997-2000), Melbourne (2009) and Adelaide (2010-2013). I travelled across China, along the Silk Route, and in the Middle East. In 2013 I moved to Vancouver and became a proud citizen of Canada. World literature, transcultural practices (in particular, translation), and global mobility are my main areas of interest and research, but I have always kept alive my true passions: creative writing and creative reading.
I have published several books on the socio-cultural impact of globalization and digital technologies. Among them: I nuovi nomadi (New Nomads, 1996): a contribution to the definition of the concept of neonomadism in existential and socio-cultural terms; Uoma. La fine dei sessi (Wo/Man Machine. The End of Genders, 2000): an exploration of the social and ethical implications of the hybridization of gender roles and the growing interdependence between humans and machines; Jesus Christ Cyberstar. At the Origins of the Internet (2009): a pamphlet on the birth of the World Wide Web and its emerging (but, eventually, disavowed) values of equality, transparency and fairness; and Il quintetto d'Istanbul. Confluenze e intrecci tra vita e scrittura nella transculturalità (2021).
After having obtained a PhD in Comparative Literature (with a focus on Creative Writing and World Literature) at the University of South Australia, in 2013 I relocated with my husband and children to Vancouver.
I am a sessional lecturer in Italian Studies and Film Adaptation at the University of British Columbia (Department of French, Hispanic and Italian Studies) and have been a SSHCR postdoctoral recipient at the University of Ottawa (School of Translation and Interpretation), where I conducted research on bilingual writers who self-translate from romance languages (I'm fluent in French and can speak and read Spanish) into English and vice versa.
My book Transcultural Writers and Novels in the Age of Global Mobility (Purdue UP, 2015) consists of a creative nonfiction piece, which I self-translated from Italian into English, and a critical exegesis on transnational flows, transcultural writing, identity and cultural translation.
Seaborn Eyes is my collections of poems dedicated to sealovers and lovesick seafarers.
Arianna teaches Italian literarure, comparative literatrue and creative Writing at the University of British Coloumbia. She is available across Canada for public readings on her writing, and she is willing to talk about the writing process, travel writing, book marketing, bilingual writing and (self-)translation, transnational/transcultural writing, and the process of a book adaptation to the screen.
