Michela Murgia

Michela Murgia (3 June 1972 – 10 August 2023) was an Italian novelist, playwright, and radio personality.

She was a winner of the Premio Campiello, the Mondello International Literary Prize and Dessì prize, and was an active feminist and left-wing voice in the Italian public scene, speaking out on themes such as euthanasia and LGBTQ+ rights.

Michela Murgia was born in Cabras, Sardinia, on 3 June 1972.

At the age of 18, she was taken in by her adoptive family as a filla de ànima, a 'soul-child', a traditional Sardinian adoption.

In contrast to the usual age of between 10 and 14 years, Murgia's adoption was delayed because of her natural father's opposition.

Murgia attended the Lorenzo Mossa Institute for Technical Studies in Oristano, and then joined the Institute of Religious Studies of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oristano to study theology.

She taught religious studies at middle and grammar schools in Oristano for six years but never finished her studies.

Among many other job experiences, before dedicating herself to writing she was a multi property seller, a fiscal operator, an administrative manager in a thermoelectrical centre and even a nighttime doorkeeper.

She was also active in the Catholic Action for a period as a regional referent for the youth section and she always considered herself a "believer".

She ideated a theatre representation for the end of the end of the national pilgrimage of the Azione Cattolica in the Piana di Loreto in september 2004, with Pope Giovanni II attending.

She kept a blog, Il Mio Sinis, in which she described the peninsula of Sinis with the help of photography.

By 2004 she was already among the 42 writers reunited by Giulio Angioni in Cartas de logu: scrittori sardi allo specchio (Cartas de logu: sardinian writers at the mirror).

Michela Murgia's first work, Il mondo deve sapere, was published in 2006.

First imagined and created as a blog,this was a satire on the telemarketing call centre of an important multinational, Kirby Company, highlighting the economic exploitation and psychological manipulation of its workers.

The book was dramatised for the stage by David Emmer and starred Teresa Saponangelo.

It was also filmed by Paolo Virzì, and released in 2008 as Tutta la vita davanti., with Isabella Ragonese, Sabrina Ferilli, Elio Germano, Valerio Mastandrea e Massimo Ghini.

In 2008 she publishes Viaggio in Sardegna (Trip to Sardinia) for Einaudi, a literary guide to the lesser known locations of the island.

In 2008, Murgia wrote a travel book on her native Sardinia,.

In 2009 she publishes for Einaudi the novel Accabadora, a story which unites the themes of euthanasia and adoption in 1950’s Sardinia.

The novel was published in a german translation in 2010 for Wagenbach and gained several awards including the Dessì prizein 2009, the Mondello International Literary Prize and the Molinello Award for First Fiction.

This novel was also published as an audiobook, narrated by its own writer, for Emons Audiolibri.

In 2011 Maurizio Zanolla, free climber, dedicated a climbing path he opened together with Bruno Fonnesu to Accabadora in Gutturu Cardaxius.

In 2011 she publishes, for Einaudi, Ave Mary.

E la chiesa inventò la donna (hail mary: and the church invented the woman).

In 2012, still with Einaudi, she publishes L'incontro (the meeting) and a story in the anthology Presente (AA.VV.).

Also in the same year, on behalf of Caracò Editore, he published the anthology Piciocas.

Storie di ex bambine dell'Isola che c'è,(Stories of former girls from the Island that exists), the story The Lobster.

From this book Punkreas got their inspiration for the lyrics of Santa Madonna, written for Fedez and part of the Mr. Brainwash album 2013.

In 2013 she published for Laterza the pamphlet against feminicide written together with Loredana Lipperini and entitled L'ho uccisa perché l'amavo.

Falso!

(I killed her because I loved her: false!) In October 2015 the novel Chirú was published by Einaudi, a novel about a cross genertional mentoring relationship.

In the spring of 2016, again for Einaudi, she published the pamphlet Futuro Interiore on the themes of identity, power and democracy.

In the 2016-2017 television season, she participated in the program Quante storie on Rai 3 with a daily column of literary reviews and book recommendations.

From 30 September 2017 to 4 November 2017 she hosted Chakra on Saturday afternoons on Rai 3.

In 2018 she published for Marsilio the literary memoir  L'inferno è una buona memoria (Hell is a good memory), inspired by the novel Le nebbie di Avalon (The Mists of Avalon) by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

Two months later, the political pamphlet Istruzioni per diventare fascisti (Instructions for becoming fascists) was published by Einaudi and translated into five languages.

In February 2019, the collection of illustrated stories Noi siamo tempesta (We are storm) was released by the Adriano Salani editions, which in the same year won the Morante prize and the special mention of the jury of the Andersen prize.

In 2019, in collaboration with Chiara Tagliaferri, she published for Arnoldo Mondadori Editore the collection of biographical stories Morgana, Storie di ragazze che tua madre non approverebbe (stories of girls that your mother wouldn't approve of), taken from the podcast of the same name on the Storie Libere platform that the two authors have been creating together since 2018.

In the same year she contributed to the anthology Le nuove Eroidi (The New Heroids) for Harper Collins, with the story Elena.

Murgia wrote as a columnist for L'Espresso; her column, which began in January 2021, was titled "L'Antitaliana" ("the anti-Italian").