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Alessandra Lavagnino

3.7/5 ( ratings)
Alessandra Lavagnino was born in Naples in 1927, and grew up in Rome where she graduated in Biology. Her postgraduate research was partly carried out in Palermo, where she has lived ever since, teaching at the University, working on the campaign to eradicate malaria, and becoming Associate Professor of Parasitology. She is married with two children and two grandchildren, and continues to make frequent visits to Rome. Some of her most important writing has appeared in the years since she retired from academic life.

Lavagnino’s earliest literary publications were stories in magazines such as Amica and Nuova Antologia. Her first novella, I Lucertoloni, appeared in 1969 after being awarded the Premio Inedito for its unpublished manuscript, and was later translated into English by William Weaver.

The author believes that Una granita di caffè con panna may be the first account from a woman’s point of view of life in a society dominated by the Mafia. Leonardo Sciascia praised this novella for both exemplifying and bringing to a close the Pirandellian tradition of truth revealed in madness.

In fiction and non-fiction, Lavagnino’s favoured vehicle is the short novel or long story, and her most distinctive literary preoccupation is silence. She lyrically dramatises the act of not saying in all its wide variety – from a teenager’s debilitating stammer to the divine decree imposed on John the Baptist’s father – metaphors of the silences which continue to haunt Italian society.

Lavagnino’s non-fiction includes three works dealing with insects and their impact on human beings, told in a form she calls ‘divulgazione raccontata’, an informal narrative method drawn from her approach to teaching.

Her one full-length novel, Le bibliotecarie di Alessandria , was short-listed for the Premio Strega and the Premio Vittorini, and won New York University’s Zerilli-Marimò Award.

In recent years Lavagnino has played a central role in a wider cultural project to record a forgotten part of Italian history. During the Nazi occupation a team of civil servants defied the authorities in order to rescue artworks from the dangers of the Allied invasion and bring them to safety in the Vatican. This operation is commemorated in Un inverno 1943-1944, which draws on accounts left by those who took part in it. Lavagnino herself appears in Paolo Pisanelli’s film, Un inverno di guerra , which is based on her book.

Alessandra Lavagnino

3.7/5 ( ratings)
Alessandra Lavagnino was born in Naples in 1927, and grew up in Rome where she graduated in Biology. Her postgraduate research was partly carried out in Palermo, where she has lived ever since, teaching at the University, working on the campaign to eradicate malaria, and becoming Associate Professor of Parasitology. She is married with two children and two grandchildren, and continues to make frequent visits to Rome. Some of her most important writing has appeared in the years since she retired from academic life.

Lavagnino’s earliest literary publications were stories in magazines such as Amica and Nuova Antologia. Her first novella, I Lucertoloni, appeared in 1969 after being awarded the Premio Inedito for its unpublished manuscript, and was later translated into English by William Weaver.

The author believes that Una granita di caffè con panna may be the first account from a woman’s point of view of life in a society dominated by the Mafia. Leonardo Sciascia praised this novella for both exemplifying and bringing to a close the Pirandellian tradition of truth revealed in madness.

In fiction and non-fiction, Lavagnino’s favoured vehicle is the short novel or long story, and her most distinctive literary preoccupation is silence. She lyrically dramatises the act of not saying in all its wide variety – from a teenager’s debilitating stammer to the divine decree imposed on John the Baptist’s father – metaphors of the silences which continue to haunt Italian society.

Lavagnino’s non-fiction includes three works dealing with insects and their impact on human beings, told in a form she calls ‘divulgazione raccontata’, an informal narrative method drawn from her approach to teaching.

Her one full-length novel, Le bibliotecarie di Alessandria , was short-listed for the Premio Strega and the Premio Vittorini, and won New York University’s Zerilli-Marimò Award.

In recent years Lavagnino has played a central role in a wider cultural project to record a forgotten part of Italian history. During the Nazi occupation a team of civil servants defied the authorities in order to rescue artworks from the dangers of the Allied invasion and bring them to safety in the Vatican. This operation is commemorated in Un inverno 1943-1944, which draws on accounts left by those who took part in it. Lavagnino herself appears in Paolo Pisanelli’s film, Un inverno di guerra , which is based on her book.

Books from Alessandra Lavagnino

Le bibliotecarie di Alessandria

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Via dei Serpenti

3.4/5 ( ratings)

I Daneu: Una famiglia di antiquari

3/5 ( ratings)

La mala aria: Storia di una lunga malattia narrata in breve

4/5 ( ratings)

Il maestro delle colombe. Un racconto con dodici finali

3/5 ( ratings)

Sei colori siciliani

4/5 ( ratings)

Elisabeth The Mother

4/5 ( ratings)

Un inverno: 1943-1944

4/5 ( ratings)
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