Grazia Deledda

Grazia Deledda (1875-1936), Italian novelist of the Naturalist movement and Nobel laureate. She was born in Nuoro, Sardinia, and spent her married life in Rome. A prolific writer, she produced many novels and short stories evocative of the hard life and emotional conflicts of the people of her native island. Elias Portolú (1903) develops the story of an ex-convict in love with his sister-in-law. Cosima (1937) is autobiographical. Her most famous novel, La madre (1920; The Mother, 1923), explores the relationship between a priest and his devoted mother. Ashes (1904; trans. 1910) also concerns a mother and her son. Deledda won the 1926 Nobel prize for literature.