Lilith is a figure in Jewish mythology, developed earliest in the Babylonian Talmud. From c. 700–1000 AD onwards Lilith appears as Adam's first wife, created at the same time and from the same clay as Adam—compare Genesis 1:27. The figure of Lilith may relate in part to a historically earlier class of female demons (lilītu) in ancient Mesopotamian religion, found in cuneiform texts of Sumer, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, and Babylonia.
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. Its most well-known aria is "Nessun dorma".
Primo Michele Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist, partisan, Holocaust survivor and writer. He was the author of several books, novels, collections of short stories, essays, and poems. His best-known works include If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland; and The Periodic Table (1975), linked to qualities of the elements, which the Royal Institution named the best science book ever written.
Carlo Emilio Gadda was an Italian writer and poet. He belongs to the tradition of the language innovators, writers that played with the somewhat stiff standard pre-war Italian language, and added elements of dialects, technical jargon and wordplay.
Cesare Pavese was an Italian novelist, poet, short-story writer, translator and literary critic.
Natalia Ginzburg, was an Italian author whose work explored family relationships, politics during and after the Fascist years and World War II, and philosophy. She wrote novels, short stories and essays, for which she received the Strega Prize and Bagutta Prize. Most of her works were also translated into English and published in the United Kingdom and United States.
Gaspara Stampa was an Italian poet. She is considered to have been the greatest woman poet of the Italian Renaissance, and she is regarded by many as the greatest Italian woman poet of any age.
If This Is a Man is a memoir by Italian Jewish writer Primo Levi, first published in 1947. It describes his arrest as a member of the Italian anti-fascist resistance during the Second World War, and his incarceration in the Auschwitz concentration camp (Monowitz) from February 1944 until the camp was liberated on 27 January 1945.
Francesco Rosi was an Italian film director. His film The Mattei Affair won the Palme d'Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. Rosi's films, especially those of the 1960s and 1970s, often appeared to have political messages. While the topics for his later films became less politically oriented and more angled toward literature, he continued to direct until 1997, his last film being the adaptation of Primo Levi's book, The Truce.
The Strega Prize is the most prestigious Italian literary award. It has been awarded annually since 1947 for the best work of prose fiction written in the Italian language by an author of any nationality and first published between 1 May of the previous year and 30 April.
Mauro G. Di Pasquale, B.Sc., MD, MRO, MFS is a world champion powerlifter, bodybuilding author and columnist. Di Pasquale was an assistant professor at the University of Toronto from 1988 to 1998. He lectured and researched on athletic performance, nutritional supplements and drug use in sports. He holds an honors degree in biological science, majoring in molecular biochemistry (1968), and a medical degree (1971) - both from the University of Toronto. Di Pasquale is certified as a Medical Review Officer (MRO) by the Medical Review Officer Certification Council (MROCC). He was the MRO for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). From 1997 to 1999 Di Pasquale was involved in writing, research and product development for Experimental and Applied Sciences (EAS).
Primo is a 2005 film directed by Richard Wilson, starring the BAFTA-nominated Antony Sher and broadcast by HBO and the BBC.
Nicola Ascoli is a retired Italian footballer who played as a defender. He spent most of his career playing in Serie B and Serie C.
The Sixth Day and Other Tales, written by Primo Levi, is a collection of short stories, originally published in Storie naturali and Vizio di forma. Unlike the author's earlier and better-known works, these stories may be considered science fiction.
Judaeo-Piedmontese was the vernacular language of the Italian Jews living in Piedmont, Italy, from about the 15th century until World War II. It was based on the Piedmontese language, with many loanwords from ancient Hebrew, Provençal, and Spanish.
Luciano Bianciardi was an Italian journalist, translator and writer of short stories and novels.
Anne Milano Appel is an American translator of Italian literature. She obtained a doctorate in Romance languages from Rutgers University in 1970. She has translated, among others, works by Claudio Magris, Paolo Giordano, Giovanni Arpino and Goliarda Sapienza. She was awarded the John Florio Prize in 2012 for her translation of Arpino's Scent of a Woman. She is also working on English translations of Giordano’s Like Family, Syrian Dust by Francesca Borri and Don't Tell Me You're Afraid by Giuseppe Catozzella.
Ann Goldstein is an American editor and translator from the Italian language. She is best known for her translations of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet.
Caligula... The Untold Story is a 1982 historical exploitation film starring David Brandon and Laura Gemser. Written by George Eastman and Joe D'Amato, and produced, directed and shot by Joe D'Amato, it was created to cash-in on the success of Tinto Brass's Caligula without being a sequel or remake.
Marco Belpoliti is an Italian writer, essayist and critic, who contributes regularly to La Repubblica and L'Espresso, and is currently a professor at the University of Bergamo. He is the author of many books and edited the Einaudi edition of the complete works of Primo Levi.
