Melania Gaia Mazzuco is of Italy's known contemporary writers. Born in Rome, she attended courses of Italian literature at La Sapienza University and of screenplay writing at Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. Her debut novel Il bacio della medusa (1996) was finalist at Premio Strega and Viareggio Prize and was translated in many countries. In 1997 she published the radio play La vita assassina and in 1988 the novel La camera di Baltus. With Un giorno perfetto turned into a film by Ferzan Ozpetek she won many awards. In 2007, she edited and translated La gabbia dei falconi, a collection of stories by the Swiss writer, photographer and journalist Annemarie Schwarzenbach. In 2009 she wrote the essay Jacomo Tintoretto & i suoi figli. Storia di una famiglia veneziana, a rich and precise reconstruction of the life and the family of the famous Venetian painter Jacopo Tintoretto, which is also the main topic of the historical novel La lunga attesa dell'angelo. After Limbo (2012), she wrote the Christmas story Il bassotto e la regina (2012) illustrated by Alessandro Sanna, Sei come sei (2013), Il museo del mondo (2014), Io sono con te. Storia di Brigitte (2016), L'architettrice (2019 and 2021) and Self-Portrait. Il museo del mondo delle donne (2022).

(photo © Festivaletteratura)