Chiara Valerio was born in Scauri (Latina) in 1978. She got a Ph.D in Mathematics at the University of Naples Federico II. She collaborated with Nuovi argomenti and Nazione indiana and she worked for the Italian publishing house Nottetempo; actually she is the former editor of Italian fiction at Marsilio Editori. She wrote several novels, short stories collections and essays, including: A complicare le cose (2003); Nessuna scuola mi consola (2009); La gioia piccola d'esser quasi salvi (2009); Spiaggia libera tutti (2010); Almanacco del giorno prima (2014). In 2016 she published Storia umana della matematica; in 2019 the novel Il cuore non si vede; in 2020 the pamphlet La matematica è politica. In 2016 she published Storia umana della matematica; in 2019 the novel Il cuore non si vede, "a narrative kaleidoscope that reactivates memories of Virginia Woolf" (La Lettura); in 2020 the pamphlet La matematica è politica, and in 2022 a fictional reimagining of the Dracula myth titled Così per sempre. On Rai Radio 3, she co-curates Ad alta voce alongside Fabiana Carobolante and Lorenzo Pavolini, and hosts the interviews for the radio program L'isola deserta every Saturday morning. In 2023, Einaudi published her essay La tecnologia è religione. In 2024, she returned to the novel format—and to her hometown—with the mystery Chi dice e chi tace, published by Sellerio, which was followed in 2025 by La fila alle poste.

(photo: © Festivaletteratura)