Ben Pastor (born March 4, 1950), pseudonym of Maria Verbena Volpi, is an author born in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

. 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.

Biography

After studying archeology at the university

La Sapienza The Sapienza University of Rome (), formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", abbreviated simply as Sapienza ('Wisdom'), is a public research university located in Rome, Italy. It was founded in 1303 and is as such one of the ...

in Rome, she moved to the United States where she has taught at various universities in Ohio, Illinois and Vermont.

Works

In 2000 she published ''Lumen'', the first detective novel in the series of Martin Bora, a tormented German officer-investigator based on the figure of

Claus von Stauffenberg Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (; 15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944) was a German army officer who is best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair, part of Op ...

, executor of the attempt on Hitler's life in 1944. 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. A second series is built around Aelius Spartianus, a Roman soldier and detective in the fourth century. 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. 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 In literature, psychological fiction (also psychological realism) is a narrative genre that emphasizes interior characterization and motivation to explore the spiritual, emotional, and mental lives of its characters. The mode of narration examin ...

. Pastor's literary style is sophisticated and complex, possibly the result of her passion for authors such as

Herman Melville Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works ar ...

Yukio Mishima Kimitake Hiraoka ( , ''Hiraoka Kimitake''; 14 January 192525 November 1970), known by his pen name Yukio Mishima ( , ''Mishima Yukio''), was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, Ultranationalism (Japan), ultranationalis ...

Joseph Roth Moses Joseph Roth (2 September 1894 – 27 May 1939) was an Austrian-Jewish journalist and novelist, best known for his family saga '' Radetzky March'' (1932), about the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, his novel of Jewish life ...

Toni Morrison Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist and editor. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically accl ...

Nikos Kazantzakis Nikos Kazantzakis (; ; 2 March (Old Style and New Style dates, OS 18 February) 188326 October 1957) was a Greeks, Greek writer, journalist, politician, poet and philosopher. Widely considered a giant of modern Greek literature, he was nominate ...

and

Georges Simenon Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (; 12/13 February 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a Belgian writer who created the fictional detective Jules Maigret. One of the most prolific and successful authors of the 20th century, he published around 400 ...

, in addition to the influence of

Raymond Chandler Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...

and Hans Hellmut Kirst.

Awards

* 2020 Finalist for the Premio Emilio Sagari di Letteratura Avventurosa * 2018 Premio Internazionale speciale Flaiano per la Letteratura

References

External link

Author's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pastor, Ben 1950 births Living people Italian women novelists Writers from Rome 21st-century Italian novelists Women mystery writers Sapienza University of Rome alumni Italian emigrants to the United States 21st-century Italian women writers 21st-century pseudonymous writers Pseudonymous women writers