Sharing History

In the 19th and early 20th century, hundreds of thousands of Europeans settled in African and Asian Mediterranean countries, creating large immigrant communities with rich cultural lives. They included writers, musicians, painters and other artists born in the adopted countries of their parents. For example, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (author of the Futurist Manifesto) and Giuseppe Ungaretti (prominent Italian poet) were both born in Alexandria (Egypt) to Italian parents. Alexandria was also the hometown of poet Constantine Cavafy (Konstantínos Pétrou Kaváfis), the son of Greek-speaking parents from Constantinople, while Nobel laureate novelist Albert Camus was born in Algiers to French parents. Moreover, some painters moved temporarily or permanently to Arab countries or Turkey because they were fascinated by what appeared to them to be an “exotic” world.