Carmen Covito (born 14 November 1948 in

Castellammare di Stabia Castellammare di Stabia (; ) is a (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Campania region, in southern Italy. It is situated on the Bay of Naples about southeast of Naples, on the route to Sorrento. History Castellammare di Stabia ...

Province of Naples The province of Naples (; ) was a province in the Campania region of Italy. In 2014/2015, the reform of local authorities (Law 142/1990 and Law 56/2014), replaced the province of Naples with the Metropolitan City of Naples. Demographics The p ...

) is an Italian writer and translator. Her

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

s include ''La bruttina stagionata'' (Bompiani 1992, translated into Spanish, German, French, Dutch, and Greek), ''Del perché i porcospini attraversano la strada'' (Bompiani 1995), ''Benvenuti in questo ambiente'' (Bompiani 1997) and ''La rossa e il nero'' (Mondadori 2002).

Biography

When he was only 15 years old, he sent the story The Circus Boy to the

Corriere dei Piccoli The ''Corriere dei Piccoli'' (Italian for "Courier of the Little Ones"), later nicknamed ''Corrierino'' ("Little Courier"), was a weekly magazine for children published in Italy from 1908 to 1995. It was the first Italian periodical to make a re ...

, which was published in issue 38 of September 20, 1964. He majored in philosophy with a thesis on German philosopher

Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( ; ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the Phenomenon, phenomenal world as ...

. She teaches literature in

Brescia Brescia (, ; ; or ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the region of Lombardy, in Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, a few kilometers from the lakes Lake Garda, Garda and Lake Iseo, Iseo. With a population of 199,949, it is the se ...

, is an advertising copywriter, writes comic books, travels to Japan, Spain and finally returns to

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. For a newspaper she had the opportunity to interview Aldo Busi, who was impressed by her writing and after a few years signed with her translations of works from ancient Italian (Baldassare Castiglione's Il Cortegiano and the Novellino of the thirteenth century) and

Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne (né Hathorne; July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associat ...

masterpiece The Scarlet Letter. In 1992 he published for the publisher Bompiani La bruttina stagionata, a book that won the 1992 Rapallo-Carige “Opera Prima” Prize and the 1993

Premio Bancarella The Premio Bancarella is an Italian literary prize established in 1953. It is given in Pontremoli every year, on either the last Saturday or the last Sunday in July. Six books are selected and awarded the ''Premio Selezione Bancarella''. The books ...

. It is translated into German, Spanish, French, Dutch, Greek, and Romanian. A theatrical monologue (performed by Gabriella Franchini and directed by

Franca Valeri Alma Franca Maria Norsa (31 July 1920 – 9 August 2020), known professionally as Franca Valeri, was an Italian actress, author, and screenwriter. Life and career Born in Milan as Alma Franca Maria Norsa, she managed to survive the Holocaust in ...

, adapted by Ira Rubini) and a film of the same name (starring Carla Signoris, screenplay and directed by Anna Di Francisca) were made from the book. In 1995, Covito published her second novel, Of Why Porcupines Cross the Road. The first two novels were followed by a third, a true web immersion: Welcome to this environment. In 1997, Covito translated Claudine at School by

Colette Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (; 28 January 1873 – 3 August 1954), known as Colette or Colette Willy, was a French author and woman of letters. She was also a Mime artist, mime, actress, and journalist. Colette is best known in the English-speaki ...

for Frassinelli's I classici classics series directed by Aldo Busi. Meanwhile, she published in ebook format a collection of short stories (Skeletons without a Closet and Other Short Stories) and turned to the study of Ancient Near Eastern archaeology to write the novel The Red and the Black, released in 2002. Three years later he published a manual, The Art of Quitting Smoking (unwillingly). Since 2007, she has been a founding member of the cultural association Shodo.it, which works to spread knowledge of Sino-Japanese calligraphy, of which she remains vice-president until 2020, and since 2011 she has directed the online studies journal AsiaTeatro. In 2008 he translated Elizabeth Abbott's History of Chastity. In 2012 he returned to fiction with the short novel The Girls of Pompeii, followed in 2013 by the short story The Trial of Justa, set in ancient Herculaneum. In recent years she has devoted herself mainly to research as an independent scholar, focusing particularly on the history of the reception of Japanese theater in Italy. In 2023 she published her first academic essay, Sadayakko, the Duse of Japan.

References

External links

Public domain self-published eBook: ''Tales from the Web''
(translation by E. Guidi, 2001). 1948 births Living people 20th-century Italian novelists People from Castellammare di Stabia 20th-century Italian women writers Bancarella Prize winners {{Italy-writer-stub