Grazia Deledda
Italian writer
Who was Grazia Deledda?
Grazia Maria Cosima Damiana Deledda (Italian: [ˈɡrattsja deˈlɛdda]; Sardinian: Gràssia or Gràtzia Deledda [ˈɡɾa(t)si.a ðɛˈlɛɖːa]; 27 September 1871 – 15 August 1936) was an Italian writer who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926 "for her idealistically inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island [i.e. Sardinia] and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general". Deledda was born in Nuoro, Sardinia, into a middle-class family, to Giovanni Antonio Deledda and Francesca Cambosu, as the fourth of seven siblings. She attended elementary school (the minimum required at the time) and was then educated by a private tutor (a guest of one of her relatives) and moved on to study literature on her own. It was during this time that she started displaying an interest in writing short novels, mostly inspired by the life of Sardinian peasants and their struggles.
Historical significance
She was the first Italian woman to receive the prize, and only the second woman in general after Selma Lagerlöf was awarded hers in 1909. Grazia Maria Cosima Damiana Deledda was an Italian writer who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926 "for her idealistically inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island [i.e. Sardinia] and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general".
![Bust of Grazia Deledda by Amelia Camboni [it], Pincio, Rome](/image-proxy?src=https%3A%2F%2Fthumb.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2F6%2F6a%2FPincio_-_busti_-_Deledda_P1080984.jpg%2F1280px-Pincio_-_busti_-_Deledda_P1080984.jpg%3Futm_source%3Den.wikipedia.org%26utm_campaign%3Dparser%26utm_content%3Dthumbnail&w=760&q=82)