About the Author: The daughter of well known ethnologist Fosco Maraini, Dacia Maraini spent her early childhood in Japan while her father conducted his research. Because of her parents' anti-fascist views, the family was con fined in a concentration camp during the final years of the war. After their return from Japan, she and her family lived in Sicily, for the first few years in Bagheria at the ancestral home of her mother, painter Topazia Alliata. The girl Dacia studied in Palermo, Florence and Rome, beginning her writing career with articles in literary magazines.Her first novel, La vacanza (The Vacation ) was published in1962, and the second, L'eta del malessere (The age of discontent ) won the International Formentor Prize in 1963 and has been translated into twelve languages. She has subsequently published eight more novels, several investigative studies, and collections of poetry and essays. Among her other translated works are: Memorie di una ladra 1973 (Memoirs of a Female Thief; Donna in guerra 1975 (Woman at War); Lettere a Marina 1981 (Letters to Marina); Il treno per Helsinki 1984 (The Train); Isolina (1985); La lunga vita di Marianna Ucria 1990 (The Silent Duchess); Viaggiando con passo di volpe, 1983-1991 ( Traveling in the Gait of a Fox). Her most recent works include Bagheria (1993), a narrative memoir on Sicily, and Cercando Emma 1994 (Searching for Emma) a study on Flaubert's creation of Emma Bovary. She has won major literary prizes for her work, notably the Premio Campiello for La lunga vita di Marianna Ucria and Premio Strega in 1999. Both La lunga vita di Marianna Ucria and Bagheria (12 editions by 1994) stayed on Italy's best-seller lists for close to two years.While continuing to publish novels and poetry, she co-founded the Teatro del Porcospino in the 1960's and established the feminist experimental theatre La Maddalena in Rome, in 1973. The American literary magazine Aphra-serially published her play Manifesto in 1972-73, and a production was subsequently presented at the Provincetown Playhouse. Another play, Mary Stuart, has been performed at La Mama Theatre in New York, in Holland at the Publieke Theatre, in Spain at the Teatro EspaOol de Madrid (dir. Hemilio Hernandez), and in Montevideo, Uruguay at the Teatro Candela, (dir. Marcelino Dufau) 1986, as well as in Australia, Belgium, Germany, and Austria, and later in 1990 at California State University, Hayward, while I sogni di Clitennestra (The Dreams of Clytemnestra) was performed in a English translation by the City Troupe in New York in September 1989. Other plays include Dialogo di una prostituta con il suo cliente (Dialogue between a Prostitute and her Client), performed in London by the Monstrous Regiment at the East End Theatre, 1980-81, director Ann Mitchell, and Stravaganza performed in Vienna at the Kunstlerhaus, directed by Johanna Thomek in 1987, then in Australia, Brazil, and Germany. Additional plays continue to be translated and performed, most recently a stage version of Marianna Ucria. Several films have been made on her books and she herself has written screenplays for such directors as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Marco Ferreri, Carlo Di Palma, and Margarethe Von Trotta. She continues to be active in feminist causes and as a commentator on politics and society, especially in columns for newspapers and weeklies. Her articles have appeared regularly in such publications as Corriere della Sera, La Stampa, L'Unita, Paese Sera . Of these, several earlier essays have been collected in La Bionda, la bruna, e I'asino (1987).Her last success is the collections of short stories called Buio, which won the most prestigious italian literary prize: the Premio Strega, in 1999.