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Matilde Serao (Italian pronunciation:[maˈtildeseˈraːo]; Greek: Ματθίλδη Σεράο; 14 March 1856 – 25 July 1927) was an Italian journalist and novelist. She was the first woman called to edit an Italian newspaper, Il Corriere di Roma and later Il Giorno. Serao was also the co-founder and editor of the newspaper Il Mattino, and the author of several novels. She never won the Nobel Prize in Literature despite being nominated on six occasions.[1]
Biography
The house in Patras where Matilde Serao and Kostis Palamas were born
Serao was born in the Greek city of Patras to an Italian father, Francesco Serao, and a Greek mother, Paolina Borely (or Bonelly).[2][3] Her father, a Neapolitan journalist, had emigrated to Greece from Naples for political reasons.[3][4]
In 1860 the family moved back to Italy, first to Carinola and then to Naples. Serao grew up in poverty and worked as a schoolmistress, an experience later described in the preface to a book of short stories called Leggende Napolitane (Napoletan Legends, 1881). She first gained notoriety after publishing her short stories in Il Piccolo, a newspaper edited by Rocco de Zerbi and her first novel, Fantasia (Fantasy, 1883), which established her as an author capable of writing with sentiment and analytical subtleties.
She spent the years between 1880 and 1886 in Rome, where she wrote her next five volumes of short stories and novels, all dealing with the struggles of ordinary people, and distinguished by great accuracy of observation and depth of insight: Cuore infermo (1881), Fior di passione (1883), La conquista di Roma (1885), La Virtù di checchina (1884), and Piccole anime (1883).
With her husband, Edoardo Scarfoglio, she founded Il Corriere di Roma, the first Italian attempt to model a daily journal along the lines of the Parisian press. The paper was short lived, and after its demise Serao established herself in Naples where she edited Il Corriere di Napoli. In 1892 she co-founded Il Mattino with her husband, which became the most important and most widely read daily paper of southern Italy. She established and ran her own newspaper, "Il Giorno" in 1904 until her death. The stress of a journalistic career in no way limited her literary activity; between 1890 and 1902 she produced Il paese di cuccagna, Il ventre di Napoli, Addio amore, All'erta sentinella, Castigo, La ballerina, Suor Giovanna della Croce, Paese di Gesù, novels in which the character of the people is rendered with sensitive power and sympathetic breadth of spirit. Most of these have been translated into English. The late nineteenth century English novelist George Gissing read three of her works in the original Italian between November 1894 and early January 1895, namely "Gli Amanti", "Cuore Infermo" and "Fantasia".[5]
La virtù di Checchina ("The Virtue of Checchina", 1884)
Il ventre di Napoli ("The Belly of Naples", 1884)
La conquista di Roma ("The Conquest of Rome", 1885)
Le vie dolorose ("The Sorrowful Ways", 1886)
Il romanzo della fanciulla ("A Girl's Novel", 1886; revised in 1895 as "Telegraphs of the State: Novel for Ladies" [Telegrafi dello Stato. Romanzo per le signore])
Vita e avventure di Riccardo Joanna ("Life and Adventures of Riccardo Joanna", 1887)
Fior di passione ("Flower of Passion", 1889)
Addio, amore! ("Goodbye, Love!", 1890)
Il paese di cuccagna ("The Land of Cocaine", 1891)
Piccolo romanzo ("Little Novel", 1891)
Castigo ("Punishment", 1893)
Gli amanti. Pastelli ("Lovers: Pastels", 1894)
Le Marie (1894)
L'indifferente ("The Indifferent", 1896)
L'infedele ("The Infidel", 1897)
Donna Paola (1897)
Nel sogno ("In the Dream", 1897)
Nel paese di Gesù. Ricordi di un viaggio in Palestina ("In the Country of Jesus: Memories of a Trip to Palestine", 1898)
Storia di una monaca ("Story of a Nun", 1898)
La ballerina ("The Ballerina", 1899)
Come un fiore ("Like a Flower", 1900)
Saper vivere. Norme di buona creanza ("Knowing How to Live: Norms of Good Manners", 1900)
L'anima semplice. Suor Giovanna della Croce ("The Simple Soul: Sister Giovanna della Croce", 1901)
La Madonna e i santi. Nella fede e nella vita ("The Madonna and the Saints: In Faith and Life", 1901)
Storia di due anime ("Story of Two Souls", 1904)
Tre donne ("Three Women", 1904)
Dopo il perdono ("After the Pardon", 1905)
Sterminator Vesevo. Diario dell'eruzione aprile 1906 ("Exterminator Vesevo: Diary of the Eruption, April 1906", 1906)
Il giornale ("The Newspaper", 1906)
La leggenda di Napoli ("The Legend of Naples", 1906)
Sognando ("Dreaming", 1906)
Evviva la vita! ("Cheers to Life!", 1908)
Cristina (1908)
I capelli di Sansone ("The Hair of Samson", 1909)
San Gennaro nella leggenda e nella vita ("San Gennaro in Legend and Life", 1909)
Il pellegrino appassionato ("The Passionate Pilgrim', 1911)
La mano tagliata ("The Cut Hand", 1912)
Ella non rispose ("She Did Not Answer", 1914)
Parla una donna. Diario femminile di guerra, maggio 1915-marzo 1916 ("A Woman Speaks: Women's War Diary, May 1915–March 1916", 1916)
Temi il leone ("Fear the Lion", 1916)
La vita è così lunga! ("Life is So Long!", 1918)
La moglie di un grand'uomo, ed altre novelle scelte ("The Wife of a Great Man, and Other Short Stories", 1919)
Mors tua.... Romanzo in tre giornate ("Mors tua.... Novel in Three Days", 1926)
Via delle cinque lune ("Street of the Fifth Moon", 1941; posthumous)
L'occhio di Napoli ("The Eye of Naples", 1962; posthumous)
I mosconi ("The Blowflies", 1974; posthumous)
L'ebbrezza, il servaggio e la morte ("Drunkenness, Servitude and Death, 1977; posthumous)
Short story collections
Dal vero ("From Life", 1879)
Raccolta minima ("Minimum Collection", 1881)
Leggende napoletane ("Neapolitan Legends", 1881)
Piccole anime ("Little Souls", 1883)
Racconti napoletani ("Neapolitan Tales", 1889)
Le amanti ("The Lovers", 1894)
Novelle sentimentali ("Sentimental Novels", 1902)
Essays
L'anima dei fiori ("The Soul of Flowers", 1903)
Santa Teresa (1904)
Other writings
L'Italia a Bologna. Lettere ("Italy in Bologna: Letters", 1888)
Lettere d'amore. Il perché della morte ("Love Letters: The Reason for Death", 1901)
Lettere d'una viaggiatrice ("Letters of a Traveller", 1908)
Vita e scuola. Libro per la quarta classe elementare ("Life and School: Book for the Fourth Elementary Class", 1912; with Camillo Alberici)
^Knapp, Bettina Liebowitz (2000-01-01). Gambling, Game, and Psyche. SUNY Press. p. 129. ISBN978-0-7914-4383-5. Matilde Serao ( 1856-1907 ) was born in Patras, Greece, to a Greek mother and to a Neapolitan journalist father who had been forced into exile in 1848 because of his anti-Bourbon stand.
^Coustillas, Pierre ed. London and the Life of Literature in Late Victorian England: the Diary of George Gissing, Novelist. Brighton: Harvester Press, 1978, pp.351-3.
