Sapienza. A-Z

Published to mark the hundredth anniversary of her birth, the ninth title in the A-Z series of monographs is devoted to Goliarda Sapienza, the author of L’arte della gioia, a masterpiece published posthumously that has become a cult book and an international success with several generations of readers.

Sapienza’s twofold artistic vocation as an actress and a writer offers us a many-sided and versatile profile: her youthful training in acting, theatre and cinema gave way to the writing of literature, a second professional life, explored by experimenting with various genres and forms (from poetry to memoirs, historical novels and plays) and by building a critical relationship to language, expressed with the urgency to remove the encrustations that alter the meaning of words in order to rediscover their deepest meaning.
The formula of the alphabet, here interpreted in 71 entries from A to Z, presented by 38 authors, is therefore well suited to Sapienza’s research into words, as well as to rendering her vitality, inspiration and artistic talent, her versatility and openness to different genres and codes, as well as the transmedial reception of her texts.

The volume includes an illustrated insert that reproduces some manuscripts and photographs, preserved in the Sapienza-Pellegrino Archive, and is presented as an atlas of her life as a passionate experimenter with every form of recreation of her own image, ready for the most diverse metamorphoses, but always devoted to the art of joy.