Grazia Deledda was born in 1871 in Nuoro, situated in the remote mountain region of Barbagia on the island of Sardinia. Despite the familial, societal, and cultural adversities that she encountered on her literary journey, in 1926 she became the second Italian author after Giosuè Carducci (1906), the first Italian woman, and the second woman ever to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Because of its originality, ethical force, sociological awareness, and visual power, Deledda’s prose defied canonical definitions of contemporary movements such as “Verismo” (the Italian version of French Naturalism) and Decadentism. At the same time, the marginality of her Sardinian culture, her woman writer’s voice, and her self-acquired literary education resulted in a general lack of…

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Citation: Heyer-Caput, Margherita. "Grazia Deledda". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 January 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1212, accessed 19 March 2024.]

1212 Grazia Deledda 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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