Today’s personalities: add more information about Melina Marchetta's life

Melina Marchetta

Melina Marchetta was born in Sydney (Australia) in 1965, from an Italian family. Now she lives in her native town, where she works as a teacher in a lyceum. For a considerable period she wandered through different countries in order to see, discover, understand and write. So she became a famous writer, dedicating herself to describe the experiences and difficulties of the youth, a world she knows well thanks to her pedagogical activity and in defence of civil rights.

Melina Marchetta has a run of prizes and appreciations not only in her country; in fact, she’s in the forefront in Italy, too, where Mondadori Publishing House publishes her best works. In 1993 her novel "Looking for Alibrandi” is published under the Italian title of “Terza generazione". It’s a novel about Italian emigrants, where the protagonist is an Australian girl with Sicilian grandparents, who is prisoner and uncertain between two cultures. She’s forced to face her family’s old traditions and the prejudices that are always present even in a multicultural society like the Australian one. At the end, Josie Alibrandi (that’s the name of the heroine) will discover her real personality.

The book is published not only in Australia and in Italy, but also in Germany, Spain, Canada and Norway, had won several prizes. Maybe the most appreciated recognition is that "Loking for Alibrandi" is the most stolen book in the Australian libraries. Melina also edited the script of a successful movie made from her novel.

In 2004 Mondadori publishes “Il mondo in briciole" (original title “Saving Francesca”). The protagonist, Francesca, has to struggle and face difficult situations: the new school, her mother’s breakdown, her family’s crisis and the first complicated approaches with the opposite sex: finally, she overcomes all the difficulties and succeeds.

Melina Marchetta is a public lecturer, a screenplayer and she collaborates with the theatre. What we are interested in most is her strong bond with her Italian origins and her presence in our country in various cultural happenings. This is the way she helps the “third generation” to understand the importance of keeping strong relationships with the values of the Italian spirit.