A Biography after the Empire: The Way of a "Black Italian" Woman from Naples to Addis Ababa

The paper is based on the life story of Elena Sengal, a lecturer of Amharic and Tigrinya at the Istituto Orientale in Naples, who was born in Asmara in 1911, lived for most of her life in Naples, and then moved to Addis Ababa after World War II, where she died in 1962. Her father was Sengal Workneh, an interpreter who worked for the Italian colonial administration in Eritrea and also taught at the Istituto Orientale; her mother was an Italo-Eritrean woman. Elena received a prestigious education, attending a classical high school and earning a university degree. In the 1920s and 1930s, this was far from a given for a woman, especially one of African descent. In Naples, she made a career as a teacher and linguist, working with the most prominent scholars of the time. She participated in conferences and published scientific works. At the same time she experienced racism and abuse of power, attitudes that didn't change after the collapse of the fascist regime and the end of the Second World War. So she decided to move to Ethiopia, where she worked as a teacher and librarian. However, racism and marginalization accompanied her life in the East African country. My paper aims to trace the professional trajectory of Elena Sengal both during and after the Italian imperial expansion. It will focus on fascist Italy in the 1930s and 1940s and imperial Ethiopia in the 1950s as the framework of Elena Sengal's life. In particular, the years in Ethiopia provide an important perspective on how she saw herself and other fellow Africans in the context of Italian and European imperialism and its aftermath.