Laudomia Bonanni: The Writer Praised by Montale

Laudomia Bonanni, born in L'Aquila in 1907 and passing away in Rome in 2002, was an Italian author whose writing drew comparisons to James Joyce's Dubliners by Eugenio Montale. With encouragement from her mother, Amalia Perilli, she graduated from the Istituto Magistrale dell'Aquila in 1924 and dedicated many years to teaching, including at the De Amicis school until 1966. She served as a representative for the Fascist women's association at a juvenile court starting in 1938 and later as a lay judge. Her collection, Il fosso, won a prize in 1948 and was published in 1949. Montale and others praised her work, and she made history in 1950 as the first woman to win the Bagutta Opera Inedita prize. She earned numerous accolades and awards throughout her career, including the Viareggio Prize for L'imputata in 1960. After retiring, she moved to Rome and interacted with notable literary figures. Although she was a three-time finalist for the Strega Prize, she never clinched the win. Bompiani's refusal to publish her 1985 work, La rappresaglia, led her to stop writing. She passed away in 2002 from a femur fracture, but her literary legacy has been revived by an international cultural group and reprints of her books. In 2007, a documentary by Carlo Nannicola honored her life and work.