A short life of the author
Elsa Morante (1912–1985) was born on 18 August 1912 in Rome. She married Alberto Moravia in 1941 and they lived together until their separation in 1962, though they never divorced. During the German occupation of Rome, she and Moravia hid in the mountains south of Rome.
Life and Career
Menzogna e sortilegio (House of Liars, 1948) — a sprawling novel about a Sicilian family’s self-deceptions across generations — won the Premio Viareggio. L’isola di Arturo (Arturo’s Island, 1957) — about a boy growing up on the island of Procida — won the Premio Strega.
La storia (History: A Novel, 1974) — an epic novel spanning 1941–1947, following a poor schoolteacher named Ida and her son Useppe through the war in Rome — was published as a paperback original at Morante’s insistence, so that ordinary readers could afford it. It became a massive bestseller and a cultural event. The novel is a devastating portrait of how war destroys the most vulnerable.
Aracoeli (1982) — about a man’s journey to Andalusia in search of his dead mother — is her final, darkest novel.
Major Works and Themes
Morante wrote about childhood, poverty, war, and the destruction of innocence. Her fiction operates on a grand scale — both formally and emotionally — and insists on the centrality of the dispossessed to history.
Key Works
- Arturo’s Island (1957) — Premio Strega
- History: A Novel (1974)
Collecting Morante
Italian originals (Einaudi) are the primary collected form. English translations bring $15–$35. Morante died in 1985.