Raffaele La Capria (3 October 1922 – 26 June 2022)[1] was an Italian novelist and screenwriter.

Raffaele La Capria
Born(1922-10-03)3 October 1922
Naples, Italy
Died26 June 2022(2022-06-26) (aged 99)
Rome, Italy
OccupationNovelist, screenwriter
LanguageItalian
NationalityItalian
Notable awardsPremio Strega
1961
Premio Campiello
2001 Lifetime Achievement
Viareggio Prize
2005

His second novel, The Mortal Wound (Ferito a morte), won Italy's most prestigious award, the Strega Prize, and is today considered a classic of Italian literature.[2] Sandro Veronesi referred to it as "the best Italian novel of all time".[3][4]

Biography

edit

La Capria was born in Naples, where he was to spend the formative years of his life. There he graduated in law, before staying in France, England, and the United States and then settling in Rome. He contributed to the cultural pages of the Corriere della Sera and was co-director of the literary journal Nuovi Argomenti. A particular interest was English poetry of the 1930s: as well as writing numerous articles he translated works including T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. In the 1950s he wrote and produced a number of radio programmes for RAI on foreign contemporary drama. In 1957 La Capria was invited to participate in the International Seminar of Literature at Harvard University. In 1961 his novel Ferito a morte won the prestigious Premio Strega.[5]

La Capria worked as co-scriptwriter on a number of Francesco Rosi's films, including Le mani sulla città (1963), Uomini contro (1970), and Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (1979). In September 2001 he received a Premio Campiello lifetime achievement award and in 2005 L'estro quotidiano was selected as the winner of the Viareggio Prize for fiction.

La Capria was the widower of the actress Ilaria Occhini.[6] He died in Rome on 26 June 2022, at the age of 99, 3 months shy of his 100th birthday[7]

Bibliography

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ Profile of Raffaele La Capria
  2. ^ Benevento, Aurelio. (2006). Scrittori del Sud : Pirandello, Gatto, Rea, Prisco e La Capria. Napoli: Edizioni scientifiche italiane. ISBN 88-495-1258-9. OCLC 73638546.
  3. ^ Radicale, Radio (17 October 2018). "Proiezione del programma di Fabrizio Corallo "Napoli Signora" e presentazione del libro di Raffaele La Capria "Il fallimento della consapevolezza" (Arnoldo Mondadori)". Radio Radicale (in Italian). Retrieved 6 December 2020.
  4. ^ "Sandro Veronesi's tweet". Twitter (in Italian). Retrieved 6 December 2020.
  5. ^ "Raffaele La Capria: premio per la narrativa" (in Italian). Napoli.com. 3 October 2005. Retrieved 11 August 2010.
  6. ^ "Nastri d'Argento 2010, omaggio a Trovajoli, Occhini e Gregoretti". MegaModo (in Italian). 11 May 2010. Retrieved 14 August 2013.
  7. ^ È morto lo scrittore Raffaele La Capria (in Italian)
edit