Addendum to Festa Books by Italian authors and illustrators

While collecting together resources for a display for Festa I began to think about how many Italian authors or illustrators would have books in our library. Here's some and of course I will have missed some.

Of course the first children's book author in Italy was Carlo Lorenzi (1826 - 1890), better known by the pen name Carlo Collodi who wrote the fairy tale novel The Adventures of Pinocchio. We do not have an original, but our library certainly has many picture book versions of Pinocchio.

The next most popular and the most prolific Italian author who has books in the library is Elisabetta Dami. She invented the character Geronimo Stilton,  the mouse living on a version of earth filled with anthropomorphic mice and rats. He lives in New Mouse City. There are more than thirty of her Geronimo books published in English.

Roberto Innocenti was born in Bagno a Ripoli (Firenze) in 1940. As a self-taught artist, he has worked in art galleries, in advertising agencies and today he is devoted to illustration.

Marianna Coppo is an Italian children’s book author and illustrator based in Rome. 

Sara Fanelli was born in Florence and went to the UK to study and has lived there since. 

Cristiana Valentini is a children’s book author who works in animation in addition to writing for children and contributing to fashion magazines in Italy, where she is based. Stay, Little Seed remains her most loved book.

Giovanna Zoboli is a writer and publisher based in Milan, Italy. In 2004 she cofounded Topipittori, a publisher of children's books, where she is currently editor and art director. She has published dozens of books in Italy and abroad.

Beatrice Alemagna was born in Bologna, Italy, but now lives and works in Paris.

Sergio Ruzzier is a picture book author and illustrator who was born in Milan.

Felicita Sala was born in Rome but grew up in Perth, Australia.  In 2020 she won the Premio Andersen as best illustrator in Italy. She lives in Rome with her family.

Alessandro Sanna was born in 1975 in Nogara in the Italian province of Verona. He already discovered drawing at the age of eleven, and went on to study graphic design at design school in Verona and noticed during this time that he not only had a talent for graphic design, but also for illustration, in particular for illustrating his own stories.

Maria Loretta Giraldo and her artistic partner Nicolletta Bertelle have books that have been translated into English.

Who have I forgotten?

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