author

Joseph Rocchietti

An early Italian-American voice in U.S. literature, he is best remembered for Lorenzo and Oonalaska (1835), widely noted as the earliest known novel by an Italian-American. His work also shows a sharp interest in how American culture and literature were taking shape in the 19th century.

1 Audiobook

Why a National Literature Cannot Flourish in the United States of North America

Why a National Literature Cannot Flourish in the United States of North America

by Joseph Rocchietti

About the author

Born in Casale Monferrato in Piedmont, Joseph Rocchietti was an Italian-born writer who emigrated to the United States in 1831. He wrote during the mid-19th century and has been identified as an important early figure in Italian-American literary history.

His best-known book is Lorenzo and Oonalaska (1835), an epistolary love story written in English and set partly in Europe and partly in Virginia. The novel is often described as the earliest known novel by an Italian-American, which gives Rocchietti a small but notable place in American literary history.

Rocchietti also wrote Why a National Literature Cannot Flourish in the United States of North America (1845), showing that he was interested not only in storytelling but also in the larger question of what American literature could become. No suitable verified portrait image was found on the sources reviewed, so none is included here.