Postcolonial Italy is characterized by contrasting voices by first- and second-generation African migrants. While an impressive Italophone literature by Afro-Italian women writers marks the present literary scene and challenges Italy’s unwillingness to cope with its colonial and postcolonial past (Cristina Ali Farah, Gabriella Ghermandi, Igiaba Scego), illegal migrants’ testimonies witness the current plight of worldwide migration processes while testifying at the same time the iniquities of the postcolonial situation at home. Both attest to the difficulties of sharing a meaningful present among us. Their voices, fraught with painful silences and denunciations of past and present wrongs, reflect the difficulties of exposing the postcolonial condition both at home and in their new countries of residence. The straddling of migrant recollections between past and present highlights the contradictory situation of ex-colonial subjects who are increasingly turned into unwanted and illegal migrants by laws and regulations which restrict their rights as postcolonial citizen.