On May 10, 1924, exactly a century ago, he was born in Catania Goliard Wisdom (died in Gaeta in 1996), writer and actress with a multifaceted and complex personality known above all for her novel published posthumously The art of joy and considered one of the most significant writers of twentieth-century Italian literature.
Daughter of the socialist lawyer Giuseppe Sapienza and the trade unionist Maria Giudicetrade unionist and first female manager of the Turin Chamber of Labor, lived a youth of absolute freedom from social constraints: her father deemed it appropriate not to even let her attend school, to prevent her daughter from being subjected to fascist impositions and influences.
At sixteen he enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome and worked in the cinema with Alessandro Blasetti and Luchino Visconti, even if in small parts as a walk-on. In 1949 she met the young director Citto Maselli with whom he began a relationship that lasted eighteen years. Subsequently she married the writer and actor Angelo Pellegrino. She left her acting career to dedicate herself to writing.
His first novel was Open letter (1967), which recounted his childhood in Catania, he had trouble with the law, continued to publish novels but managed to survive only thanks to the life annuity of the Bacchelli Law.
Precisely to remember a forgotten figure of Italian literature, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth The May of the Books of the II Municipality of Rome organized two in-depth dates on the author of the famous novel The Art of Joy. On May 4th at 4pm National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia an afternoon of dialogue on Goliarda Sapienza with Anna Toscano, Angelo Maria Pellegrino, Loredana Rotondo and interventions by Sandra Giuliani, Silvia Scognamiglio and Gisella Blancowhich will be followed by a thematic guided tour by Roberta Mingione. On May 28th, at the Flaminia Library, Giorgio Ghiotti and Gisella Blanco will traverse the often arduous path of Italian female poetry of the twentieth century, with a particular focus on Goliarda Sapienza.
