Goliarda Sapienza
catania 1924 - gaeta 1996
Goliarda Sapienza was born on 10th May 1924 in Catania, Sicily. Her mother, Maria Giudice (1880-1953), was one of the most prominent members of the Italian Socialist Party, as well as one of the first feminists in Italy. Originally from Lombardy, in 1919 Maria moved to Sicily in order to help organise the local socialist divisions and the trade-unions. Maria's former partner had died fighting as a soldier in World War I, leaving her with seven children. In Catania Maria met Peppino Sapienza (1880-1949), a socialist comrade himself, who was born from a very poor family but studied and succeeded to become a lawyer.
Maria and Peppino started a new family. Goliarda was their only child, while many step-siblings from her parents' previous families lived in the same house in Via Pistone, Catania. During her childhood, Goliarda was surrounded by a nonconformist environment, characterised by loose boundaries between family and non-family members, the crossing over of different class backgrounds and an active political involvement, oriented toward anti-fascism and anti-clericalism. The story of Goliarda's family crosses the path of key figures in the Italian and international left-wing and feminist tradition, such as Lenin, Antonio Gramsci, Sandro Pertini, Anna Kuliscioff and Angelica Balabanoff.
Since Goliarda's father did not want her to be indoctrinated by fascist propaganda, she did not attend state schools and taught herself drama and piano. At the age of sixteen she won a scholarship from the Accademia d'arte drammatica in Rome, where she moved with her mother. In 1943, after the armistice, she fought as partisan together with her father, who was involved in Pertini and Saragat's jailbreak.
After the war she went back to drama acting and also started to work in cinema. In 1947 she met the Neorealist cinema director Francesco Maselli, who was her partner for twenty years and with whom she frequented Roman intellectual environment, comprising prominent figures such as Pasolini, Visconti, Bertolucci, Zavattini and Morante.
In 1953 Maria Giudice died, after a long period of psychological decline. Her death coincided with Sapienza's first steps in writing, initially engaged with poetry.
In the late 1950s she started suffering from depression and quit drama acting. In 1962 she was recovered in a mental hospital after taking an overdose of sleeping pills. She was subjected to a series of electroshock therapies, which caused her to partially lose her memory. Afterwards, she spent the following four years trying to piece together her memories, while struggling with depression and alcohol abuse (which led her to a second suicide attempt in 1964). During this period, she was assisted by a psychoanalyst, dr. Ignazio Majore, with whom she underwent an experimental psychoanalytic therapy that bordered on an amorous relationship and which he suddenly ended. Lettera aperta (1967) and Il filo di mezzogiorno (1969) were written during the period that followed those troubled events and both engage with Sapienza's self-reconstruction by revisiting and reinterpreting her past. She then dedicated completely to writing, spending approximately ten years on her major novel, L'arte della gioia (posthumous, 1998). In this period she started a new relationship with Angelo Pellegrino, whom she married and who then became the curator of her works.
In order to support herself while working on the vast project of L'arte della gioia she sold a considerable part of her belongings and spent few days in prison after she was convicted of theft. The experience in prison inspired two autobiographical novels: L'università di Rebibbia (1983) and Le certezze del dubbio (1987).
In the last years of her life she taught acting at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome and wrote other literary works, some of which remain still unpublished. She died in Gaeta in August 1996.
Compiled by Alberica Bazzoni
Maria and Peppino started a new family. Goliarda was their only child, while many step-siblings from her parents' previous families lived in the same house in Via Pistone, Catania. During her childhood, Goliarda was surrounded by a nonconformist environment, characterised by loose boundaries between family and non-family members, the crossing over of different class backgrounds and an active political involvement, oriented toward anti-fascism and anti-clericalism. The story of Goliarda's family crosses the path of key figures in the Italian and international left-wing and feminist tradition, such as Lenin, Antonio Gramsci, Sandro Pertini, Anna Kuliscioff and Angelica Balabanoff.
Since Goliarda's father did not want her to be indoctrinated by fascist propaganda, she did not attend state schools and taught herself drama and piano. At the age of sixteen she won a scholarship from the Accademia d'arte drammatica in Rome, where she moved with her mother. In 1943, after the armistice, she fought as partisan together with her father, who was involved in Pertini and Saragat's jailbreak.
After the war she went back to drama acting and also started to work in cinema. In 1947 she met the Neorealist cinema director Francesco Maselli, who was her partner for twenty years and with whom she frequented Roman intellectual environment, comprising prominent figures such as Pasolini, Visconti, Bertolucci, Zavattini and Morante.
In 1953 Maria Giudice died, after a long period of psychological decline. Her death coincided with Sapienza's first steps in writing, initially engaged with poetry.
In the late 1950s she started suffering from depression and quit drama acting. In 1962 she was recovered in a mental hospital after taking an overdose of sleeping pills. She was subjected to a series of electroshock therapies, which caused her to partially lose her memory. Afterwards, she spent the following four years trying to piece together her memories, while struggling with depression and alcohol abuse (which led her to a second suicide attempt in 1964). During this period, she was assisted by a psychoanalyst, dr. Ignazio Majore, with whom she underwent an experimental psychoanalytic therapy that bordered on an amorous relationship and which he suddenly ended. Lettera aperta (1967) and Il filo di mezzogiorno (1969) were written during the period that followed those troubled events and both engage with Sapienza's self-reconstruction by revisiting and reinterpreting her past. She then dedicated completely to writing, spending approximately ten years on her major novel, L'arte della gioia (posthumous, 1998). In this period she started a new relationship with Angelo Pellegrino, whom she married and who then became the curator of her works.
In order to support herself while working on the vast project of L'arte della gioia she sold a considerable part of her belongings and spent few days in prison after she was convicted of theft. The experience in prison inspired two autobiographical novels: L'università di Rebibbia (1983) and Le certezze del dubbio (1987).
In the last years of her life she taught acting at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome and wrote other literary works, some of which remain still unpublished. She died in Gaeta in August 1996.
Compiled by Alberica Bazzoni