Dacia Maraini | |
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Maraini in 2012
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Born | Dacia Maraini November 13, 1936 Fiesole, Florence, Italy |
Occupation | Novelist, playwright, poet, orator |
Language | Italian |
Education | L'Istituto Statale della Ss. Annunziata, Florence |
Period | 1961 to present |
Literary movement | Anti-fascism, Feminism, Confessional writing |
Notable works |
La vacanza (The Vacation) L'età del malessere (The Age of Malaise) Donna in guerra (Woman At War) Buio |
Notable awards |
Formentor Prize 1999 Buio |
Formentor Prize
1962 L'età del malessere
Premio Fregene
1985 Isolina
Dacia Maraini (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdaːtʃa maraˈiːni]; born November 13, 1936 in Fiesole) is an Italian writer. She is the daughter of Sicilian Princess Topazia Alliata di Salaparuta, an artist and art dealer, and of Fosco Maraini, a Florentine ethnologist and mountaineer of mixed Ticinese, English and Polish background who wrote in particular on Tibet and Japan. Maraini's work focuses on women’s issues, and she has written numerous plays and novels. She has won awards for her work, including the Formentor Prize for L'età del malessere (1963); the Premio Fregene for Isolina (1985); the Premio Campiello and Book of the Year Award for La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrìa (1990); and the Premio Strega for Buio (1999). In 2013, the documentary I Was Born Travelling about her life portrayed the story of her imprisonment in a concentration camp in Japan, to the legendary journeys around the world with her partner Alberto Moravia, her close friend Pier Paolo Pasolini and opera singer Maria Callas.
Maraini was born in Fiesole, Tuscany. When she was a child, her family moved to Japan in 1938 to escape Fascism. They were interned in a Japanese concentration camp in Nagoya from 1943 to 1946 for refusing to recognize Mussolini's Republic of Salò, allied with the Empire of Japan. After the war, the family returned to Italy and lived in Sicily with her mother’s family in the town of Bagheria, province of Palermo.