Graziella "Lalla" Romano (11 November 1906 in

Demonte Demonte is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Cuneo in the Italian region Piedmont, located about southwest of Turin and about southwest of Cuneo, in the Valle Stura di Demonte. Demonte borders the following municipalities: Aisone ...

– 26 June 2001 in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

) was an Italian novelist, poet, artist and journalist.

Life and work

Romano was born as Graziella Romano in Demonte in 1906 from a noteworthy

Piedmont Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the northwest Italy, Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the ...

ese family. Her great-uncle was the mathematician and glottologist

Giuseppe Peano Giuseppe Peano (; ; 27 August 1858 – 20 April 1932) was an Italian mathematician and glottologist. The author of over 200 books and papers, he was a founder of mathematical logic and set theory, to which he contributed much Mathematical notati ...

. Romano was originally interested in painting. She attended the

University of Turin The University of Turin (Italian language, Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Torino'', UNITO) is a public university, public research university in the city of Turin, in the Piedmont (Italy), Piedmont region of Italy. It is one of the List ...

where she studied with art historian

Lionello Venturi Lionello Venturi (25 April 1885 – 14 August 1961) was an Italian historian and critic of art. He edited the first catalogue raisonné of Paul Cézanne. His son was the historian Franco Venturi. Life Lionello Venturi was born in Modena in 1885 ...

before

Cesare Pavese Cesare Pavese ( ; ; 9 September 1908 – 27 August 1950) was an Italian novelist, poet, short story writer, translator, literary critic, and essayist. He is often referred to as one of the most influential Italian writers of his time. Early ...

piqued her interest in writing. She graduated with a degree in literature and then worked as a librarian and teacher. In those years she started dating Giovanni Ermiglia, a

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

student from

Sanremo Sanremo, also spelled San Remo in English and formerly in Italian, is a (municipality) on the Mediterranean coast of Liguria, in northwestern Italy. Founded in Roman times, it has a population of 55,000, and is known as a tourist destination ...

, and wrote several poems dedicated to him which have been later collected together with other previous unpublished texts in ''Poesie per Giovanni'' (2007). During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

she joined with the Resistance. After the war, she became noted for writings that drew on personal and family experiences.

Legacy

Romano continued to paint throughout her life. In 2009, a retrospective of her paintings was held in

Aosta Aosta ( , , ; ; , or ; or ) is the principal city of the Aosta Valley, a bilingual Regions of Italy, region in the Italy, Italian Alps, north-northwest of Turin. It is situated near the Italian entrance of the Mont Blanc Tunnel and the G ...

. Her former house in Milan has been converted into a museum to preserve her work.

Partial bibliography

Novels

*''Le metamorfosi'', Turin, 1951; *''Maria'', Turin, 1953; *''Tetto Murato'', Turin, 1957; translated by Brian Robert Moore as ''A Silence Shared'', 2023 (Runner-up for the 2024

John Florio Prize The John Florio Prize for Italian translation is awarded by the Society of Authors, with the co-sponsorship of the Italian Cultural Institute and Arts Council England. Named after the Tudor Anglo-Italian writer-translator John Florio Giovann ...

, shortlisted for the 2023

Warwick Prize for Women in Translation The Warwick Prize for Women in Translation is an annual award for work by a female author translated into English and published by a UK-based or Irish publisher during the previous calendar year. The prize was established in 2017 "to address the g ...

, and winner of the PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature) *''Diario di Grecia'', Padua, 1960; *''L'uomo che parlava solo'', Turin, 1961; *''La penombra che abbiamo attraversato'', Turin, 1964; *''Le parole tra noi leggere'', Turin, 1969; (winner of the

Strega Prize The Strega Prize ( ) is the most important Italian literary award. It has been awarded annually since 1947 for the best work of prose fiction written in the Italian language by an author of any nationality and first published between 1 March of t ...

) *''L'ospite'', Turin, 1973 ; *''Una giovinezza inventata'', Turin, 1979; *''Inseparabile'', Turin, 1981; *''Nei mari estremi'', Turin, 1987; translated by Brian Robert Moore as ''In Farthest Seas'', 2025 *''Un sogno del Nord'', Turin, 1989.

Poetry

*''Fiore'', Turin, 1941; *''L'autunno'', Milan, 1955; *''Giovane è il tempo'', Turin, 1974. *''Poesie per Giovanni'', Ventimiglia, 2007.

Notes

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Romano, Lalla 1906 births 2001 deaths People from Demonte 20th-century Italian women journalists 20th-century Italian journalists Italian women poets Strega Prize winners Italian women novelists 20th-century Italian poets 20th-century Italian novelists 20th-century Italian women writers 20th-century Italian women artists Italian painters Italian contemporary artists