Questo sito utilizza cookies tecnici (necessari) e analitici.
Proseguendo nella navigazione accetti l'utilizzo dei cookies.

Author Event | An Evening with Melania G. Mazzucco

A-Melania Mazzucco © Venice Documentation Project per Incroci di civiltà-CROPPED HI REZ-800X450

The Istituto Italiano di Cultura Toronto is delighted to present one of
Italy’s acclaimed award-winning writers.

An Evening with Melania G. Mazzucco

Thursday, November 21, 2024 | 6:30PM
496 Huron Street | Toronto ON
Free Event

CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR SPOT

Acclaimed Italian author Melania G. Mazzucco is celebrated for her richly crafted novels as well as her vast expertise in art history. Known for blending historical facts with imaginative storytelling, Mazzucco has won several prestigious literary awards, including the Strega Prize for Vita, a novel capturing the Italian immigrant experience in America. Her most recent novel L’Architettrice tells the extraordinary story of Plautilla Briccia (1616-1705), a poor, narcoleptic girl from Rome who becomes the first female architect in modern history. Her upcoming novel, Silenzio. Le sette vite di Diana Karenne, explores the life of the pioneering mysterious actress, writer, director, and star of European silent movies. With a keen eye on the arts, Mazzucco’s works often explore themes of family, identity, and history. Mazzucco has in fact published Jacomo Tintoretto & i suoi figli. Storia di una famiglia veneziana, a vivid portrait of the Venetian painter to whom she also dedicated the novel La lunga attesa dell’angelo.  Mazzucco skillfully intertwines her passion for art history with her literary talent, making her a distinct voice in contemporary Italian literature.

Presented in collaboration with:
Associazione Culturale Sagra delle Regne di Minturno in Canada
Lazio Federation of Ontario
University of Toronto Mississauga – Dept. Languages Studies

About the author:
Melania G. Mazzucco, born in Rome, is one of Italy’s most distinguished authors. She writes fiction, art historical essays, and historical novels. Her first international success was Vita (2003) about  an Italian boy Diamante (based on Mazzucco’s paternal grandfather), and his friend Vita, who, at ages 12 and 9, in 1903 immigrated alone to New York. Vita won the prestigious Strega literary prize and was translated into English with the same title. Famed director Ferzan Ozpetek adapted for the screen her novel Un giorno perfetto. Mazzucco’s scholarly art history tomes are also multi-prize-winning.  She authored the expansive biography Jacomo Tintoretto e i suoi figli. Storia di una famiglia veneziana (2009) about the painter Tintoretto and his family.  On Tintoretto she also wrote the documentary Tintoretto. Un ribelle a Venezia which has been shown widely in Italy and around the world.   With Il Museo del Mondo (2014), she analyzes the stories of 52 masterpiece paintings. Mazzucco’s two art historical novels are about two female artists: La lunga attesa dell’angelo (2008) about Marietta Robusti, Tintoretto’s daughter, and L’Architettrice (2019) about Plautilla Bricci, a painter as well as Italy’s first woman architect (1616-1691). An immediate bestseller and longseller, L’Architettrice was certainly the inspiration for the first monographic exhibition ever about Plautilla: A Silent Revolution. Plautilla Bricci, Painter and “Architectress”.  Continuing that trend of casting a special regard on women in the arts are Mazzucco’s subsequent works, Self-portrait. Il museo del mondo delle donne, published in 2022, in which she shines a light on women who through the arts overcome traditional roles in the culture and society of their times. This will be followed later this year by the new novel Silenzio: Le sette vite di Diana Karenne.