Woman of Rome: A Life of Elsa Morante by Lily Tuck

“Lily Tuck is one of our best prose writers, and here she has taken the measure of another brilliant, underrated writer with deeply satisfying and surprising results. . . . [An] entrancingly written and compellingly forthright biography.”

—Phillip Lopate

Woman of Rome is the first biography of Elsa Morante, an Italian literary icon revered in her native country and admired abroad. Born in 1912 to an unconventional family of modest means, she grew up with an independent spirit, a formidable will, and a commitment to writing. In the heady postwar years in Rome, Morante published a series of prize-winning novels, including Arturo’s Island and History, a seminal account of the war, which established her as one of the leading Italian writers of her day.

Wonderfully researched with the cooperation of the Morante estate, filled with personal interviews, and written in graceful and succinct prose, Woman of Rome introduces the American reader to a woman of fierce intelligence, powerful imagination, and original talent.