Ben Pastor (born March 4, 1950), pseudonym of Maria Verbena Volpi, is an author born in Rome. She is known for her historical novels taking place in ancient Rome and in post World War II Germany. She has Italian and US citizenship.
Ben Pastor (born March 4, 1950), pseudonym of Maria Verbena Volpi, is an author born in Rome. She is known for her historical novels taking place in ancient Rome and in post World War II Germany. She has Italian and US citizenship.
After studying archeology at the university La Sapienza in Rome, she moved to the United States where she has taught at various universities in Ohio, Illinois and Vermont.
In 2000 she published Lumen, [1] the first detective novel in the series of Martin Bora, a tormented German officer-investigator based on the figure of Claus von Stauffenberg, executor of the attempt on Hitler's life in 1944. [2] It is the first in a series of novels that follow Bora throughout his military career and the Second World War in Poland, Ukraine and Italy. [3] A second series is built around Aelius Spartianus, a Roman soldier and detective in the fourth century. [4] [5] She is also the author of two books featuring Karel Heida and Solomon Meisl in Prague on the eve of the First World War.
Recurring themes in her work are the love of classical antiquity and the painful exploration of the human condition in times of war. [6] Her work is characterized by a strong influence of postmodernism, where the classical rules of mystery mingle with those of the historical and the psychological novel. Pastor's literary style is sophisticated and complex, possibly the result of her passion for authors such as Herman Melville, Yukio Mishima, Joseph Roth, Toni Morrison, Nikos Kazantzakis and Georges Simenon, in addition to the influence of Raymond Chandler and Hans Hellmut Kirst.
Lindsey Davis is an English historical novelist, best known as the author of the Falco series of historical crime stories set in ancient Rome and its empire. She is a recipient of the Cartier Diamond Dagger award.
Valeria Golino is an Italian actress and director. She is best known to English-language audiences for her roles in Rain Man, Big Top Pee-wee and the two Hot Shots! films, particularly the olive-in-the-belly-button scene. In addition to David di Donatello, Silver Ribbon, Golden Ciak and Italian Golden Globe awards, she is one of three actresses to have twice won the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival.
Giovanna Mezzogiorno is an Italian theatre and film actress.
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.
Sandro Veronesi is an Italian novelist, essayist, and journalist. After earning a degree in architecture at the University of Florence, he opted for a writing career in his mid to late twenties. Veronesi published his first book at the age of 25, a collection of poetry that has remained his only venture into verse writing. He has since published five novels, three books of essays, one theatrical piece, numerous introductions to novels and collections of essays, interviews, screenplays, and television programs.
Franco Cuomo was an Italian journalist and writer.
Susanna Tamaro is an Italian novelist and film director. She is an author of novels, stories, magazine articles, and children's literature. Her novel Va' dove ti porta il cuore was a bestseller, translated into 44 languages, and received the 1994 Premio Donna Citta di Roma.
The Flaiano Prizes are a set of Italian international awards recognizing achievements in the fields of creative writing, cinema, theater and radio-television. Established to honour the Italian author and screenwriter Ennio Flaiano (1910-1972), the prizes have been awarded annually since 1974 at the Teatro Monumentale Gabriele D'Annunzio in Pescara, Flaiano's hometown in Abruzzo, as well as D'Annunzio's.
Cinzia Giorgio is an Italian writer.
Daniele Del Giudice was an Italian author and lecturer. He lived in Venice, where he taught theatrical literature at the University Iuav of Venice.
Francesca Sanvitale was an Italian novelist and journalist, "one of Italy's most renowned contemporary authors".
Sardinian Literary Spring is a definition of the whole body of the literature produced in Sardinia from around the 1980s onwards.
Biancamaria Frabotta was an Italian writer. She promoted the study of women writers in Italy and her early poetry focused on feminist issues. The main themes of her later works are melancholy, the dichotomy between Nature and History and between Action and Contemplation, the relationship between the body and the self, and conjugal love. Besides essays on feminism and academic works on poets such as Giorgio Caproni, Franco Fortini, and Amelia Rosselli, she wrote plays, radio-dramas, a television show on Petrarch, and a novel. Until her retirement in 2016, she taught Modern Italian Literature at the University of Rome La Sapienza, where she previously received her Laurea degree.
Dagmar Reichardt is a German cultural scholar.
Antonella Salvucci is an Italian model, journalist, TV personality, and actress.
Rosella Postorino is an Italian author. In 2013 she won the International Prize Città di Penne and in 2018 she won the Rapallo Carige Prize and the Premio Campiello.
Silvana Grasso is an Italian writer.
Giovanna Giordano is an Italian writer and journalist. She has three award-winning and critically acclaimed novels published to date: Trentaseimila giorni, Un volo magico and Il Mistero di Lithian. Her first novel Cina cara io ti canto, unpublished, was a finalist for the fifth annual Premio Calvino, recommended by Gesualdo Bufalino.
Carmelo Samonà was an Italian academic and writer, as well one of the most important Italian Hispanists.
Saveria Chemotti is an Italian writer of non-fiction and prose. She is an essayist, novelist, and literary critic, as well as a researcher with a focus area of culture and gender studies.
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