Looking for Alibrandi
A world-wide hit in the late 1990s, Author Melina Marchetta wrote a manuscript about a teenage girl searching for herself and the way she is to live. Her name is Josephine Alibrandi who is a 17 year old Italian Australian or ‘wog’ as some know it, in the novel and film of ‘Looking for Alibrandi’.
Much of the discussion of Alibrandi has centred around this portrayal of the multi-cultural society of Australia, although remarkably, the novel has managed to largely avoid the negative and superficial "issues" pigeon-holing so much realist fiction for young adults is victim to. There is no question that Marchetta's own experiences as an Italian-Australian have informed her story. Nor is there any doubt that in Josephine Alibrandi she has created a fresh non-Anglo-Australian voice of great power and integrity. Nevertheless, Marchetta does find that the focus on the Italian heritage of her protagonist (and herself) can be both distracting and limiting; it was not, she says, her first impulse in telling Josephine Alibrandi's story;
Another legacy of the shared Italian-Australian heritage of both author and protagonist is the common assumption that the book must be autobiographical. The reading of her novel is in some ways complimentary, being as it is an indication of the kind of response readers have to Josephine, and to the lively and truthful tone of the novel; Marchetta has captured her characters, their situation and the inner city suburbs of Sydney acutely and precisely.
The ambivalence Marchetta feels towards Josephine is revealed through the characters of Sister Louise, her headmistress, and her boyfriend Jacob, neither of whom hesitate to point out to Josephine when she is being selfish, over-dramatic, or plain stupid. A quite shocking example of this is in the scene where Jacob rescues Josephine from a violent mob of teenage boys in a McDonalds car park, and then abuses her for her stupidity in spitting on and further antagonising the ring-leader. It is an
Much of the discussion of Alibrandi has centred around this portrayal of the multi-cultural society of Australia, although remarkably, the novel has managed to largely avoid the negative and superficial "issues" pigeon-holing so much realist fiction for young adults is victim to. There is no question that Marchetta's own experiences as an Italian-Australian have informed her story. Nor is there any doubt that in Josephine Alibrandi she has created a fresh non-Anglo-Australian voice of great power and integrity. Nevertheless, Marchetta does find that the focus on the Italian heritage of her protagonist (and herself) can be both distracting and limiting; it was not, she says, her first impulse in telling Josephine Alibrandi's story;
Another legacy of the shared Italian-Australian heritage of both author and protagonist is the common assumption that the book must be autobiographical. The reading of her novel is in some ways complimentary, being as it is an indication of the kind of response readers have to Josephine, and to the lively and truthful tone of the novel; Marchetta has captured her characters, their situation and the inner city suburbs of Sydney acutely and precisely.
The ambivalence Marchetta feels towards Josephine is revealed through the characters of Sister Louise, her headmistress, and her boyfriend Jacob, neither of whom hesitate to point out to Josephine when she is being selfish, over-dramatic, or plain stupid. A quite shocking example of this is in the scene where Jacob rescues Josephine from a violent mob of teenage boys in a McDonalds car park, and then abuses her for her stupidity in spitting on and further antagonising the ring-leader. It is an