Winner of the Premio Città delle Rose 2015
Fifty-two masterpieces times fifty-two stories: one of Italy’s most beloved narrators accompanies us in the discovery of her own personal “imaginary museum”.
From Fra Angelico to Francis Bacon, a voyage into an exceptional writer’s ideal museum.
Every painting, every work displayed in a church or gallery leaves a mark on those who look at it. It is the beginning of an adventure. Created out of faith, or money, or vocation or love, the works of art that Melania G. Mazzucco has not been able to forget embrace five continents, from antiquity to nowadays. Created as amulets, prayers or curses by men and women, hunters and witches, assassins and saints, illiterates and intellectuals, no real museum could ever contain them. An imaginary museum, however, might be up to the task.
Among the most beloved paintings, Mazzucco has selected fifty-two –“only works by artists worth spending time with” – and after a rigorous selection, she decided to recount them in her weekly Repubblica column over the course of a year. This volume gathers the stories and the images of these works that become presences, a mirror of thought, indelible emotion and sparks of the world’s meaning.
Melania Mazzucco
Melania G. Mazzucco was born and lives in Rome. She is the author of Il bacio della Medusa (1996, 2022), La camera di Baltus (1998), Lei così amata (2000, Premio Napoli), about the writer Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Vita (2003, Premio Strega), Un giorno perfetto (2005), on which was based the movie with the same title by Ferzan Ozpetek, and two works about the Italian Renaissance painter Tintoretto: the novel La lunga attesa dell’angelo (2008, Premio Bagutta) and the essay Jacomo Tintoretto e i suoi figli (2009, Premio Comisso). In 2011 she received the Premio letterario Viareggio-Tobino as Author of the Year. Then, she wrote Limbo (2012, Premio Elsa Morante, Premio Rhegium Julii, Premio Matteotti, Premio Bottari Lattes Grinzane), Il bassotto e la Regina (2012, Premio Frignano Ragazzi 2013), Sei come sei (2013), Il museo del mondo (2014), in which she narrates 54 works of art, Io sono con te (2016, Rai Radio 3 Fahrenheit‘s Book of the Year), L’architettrice (2019, Premio Alassio, Premio Capalbio, Premio Alassio “Un autore per l’Europa”, Premio Dessì, Premio Corrado Alvaro e Libero Bigiaretti, Premio Io Donna, Premio Stresa, Premio Mastercard, Premio Manzoni, Premio Righetto, Premio Friuli Venezia Giulia), Self portrait. Il museo del mondo delle donne (2022). In 2020 she won the Premio alla Carriera John Fante. In 2021 she received Premio regione Friuli Venezia Giulia with the long story Fuoco infinito. She created and wrote the docu-film Tintoretto. A Rebel in Venice, a 2019 Sky Arts original production distributed in cinemas all over the world. She wrote for the theatre, the cinema and the radio and is a contributor to la Repubblica. She’s among the authors of the anthology Ferite (2021). Her books have been translated in 28 countries.
Download here Melania Mazzucco’s rights catalogue
- Self-Portrait. Il museo del mondo delle donne. (Self-Portrait. The Museum of the World of Women)
- Il bacio della medusa (Medusa’s Kiss)
- Fuoco infinito (Infinite fire)
- L’architettrice
- Io sono con te (I’m With You)
- Il museo del mondo (The Museum of the World)
- Sei come sei (You Are How You Are)
- Il bassotto e la regina (Plato and the Queen)
- Limbo
- La lunga attesa dell’angelo (The Long Wait for the Angel)
- Jacomo Tintoretto e i suoi figli (Jacomo Tintoretto and his Daughter Marietta)
- Un giorno perfetto (A Perfect Day)
- Vita
- Lei così amata (She So Loved)
Foreign publishers of Melania G. Mazzucco’s works
Albania: Albas
Bulgaria: Uniscorp, Jelenkor
Canada: HarperCollins, Harper Perennial
China: Horizon
Croatia: Oceanmore
Denmark: Tellerup, Turbine
Finland: Avain
France: Flammarion, J’ai lu, Editions du Club
Germany, Austria and Switzerland: Piper, Knaus, btb, Hoffmann und Campe
Georgia: Sulakauri
Greece: Diigisi, Modern Times
Hungary: Európa Könyvkiadó
Israel: Schocken, Kinneret Zmora-Bitan Dvir
Japan: Michitani
Korea: Random House Corea
The Netherlands and Belgium: Mouria, Atlas-Contact
Norway: Cappelen
Poland: Wab-Foksal
Portugal: Book Cover
Romania: Polirom
Russia: Ast
Serbia: Mono j Manjana, Sezam Book
Spain and South America: Seix Barral, Planeta, Anagrama
Sweden: Norsteds, Contempo
Turkey: Yapi Kredi Culture and Arts, Doğan Kitap
UK: Pushkin
US and UK: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Picador, Thornedike Press