Morante, Elsa

(1918–1985)

   An important figure in postwar Italian fiction, Elsa Morante was the author of four major novels, Menzogna e Sortilegio (The House of Liars, 1948), L’Isola di Arturo (Arturo’s Island, 1957), La Storia (History:A Novel, 1974), and Aracoeli (Aracoeli, 1982). Childhood recurs as an obsessive theme in all her works, and child characters are often employed as a foil to expose the corruption and alienation of the adult world. Morante became famous almost overnight with the publication of La Storia, which became a best-seller and stirred a huge debate between those critics who condemned its profound pessimism and those who praised Morante’s warmth toward the ordinary people who are history’s principal victims. Initially more successful in France than in Italy, few would now doubt that Morante is one of the most important contemporary Italian novelists and one of the most talented women writers to emerge in any language since 1945. She died in her native Romein 1985.

   See also Literature; Moravia, Alberto.