Contrapuntal Identity: The Case of the Deputy Chief Luca Wu by Andrea Cotti

Abstract

In his essay Culture and Imperialism (1993), Edward Said states that cultural identity is more a contrapuntal ensemble of oppositions rather than an essence. Inspector Luca Wu, protagonist of a literary series written by Andrea Cotti, seems to be defined by this kind of tension. He was born in Bologna but his parents are Chinese migrants, he feels Italian and Chinese, but, at the same time, he is neither one nor the other. He can’t manage to find a unity, a point of balance in his being a multicultural identity. Nevertheless, it is precisely thanks to his multiculturality that he succeeds in his inquiries in the two novels Il cinese and L’impero di mezzo. The article aims to analyse the narrative elements on which detective Luca Wu multicultural identity is build and to problematize these strategies vis-à-vis the noir tropes.