Natalia Ginzburg is an Italian writer, essayist, and scriptwriter. Ginzburg was born in Palermo in 1916 to a well-to-do family, Jewish on her father’s side, who was an anatomy professor, and a Catholic on her mother’s side. In 1919, her family moved to Turin and her home became a meeting place for many intellectuals who opposed the Mussolini regime. She married the Russian editor and activist Leon Ginzburg. Leon was arrested for resisting the regime and died after torture in an Italian prison in 1944. Gintzburg worked for forty years as an editor at Einaudi publishing house. In 1950 she remarried. She was a member of the Italian Communist Party and was elected to the Italian parliament in 1983 as an independent candidate. She has published plays, essays, short stories and many novels. For her work, she won the Strega Prize and the Bagutta Prize. She died in 1991.