Italian writer Michela Murgia dies at 51

the italian writer Michelle Murgia He died this Thursday at the age of 51. Last May he revealed that he suffered from stage four kidney cancer. On June 11, Murgia announced her withdrawal from the public sphere and in mid-July she married “in articulo mortis” Lorenzo Terenzi, actor, director and musician.

With her best-known novel, ‘Accabadora’ (Einaudi, 2009), the writer won the Campiello prize. The last book of hers, ‘Three bowls. Rituali per un anno di crisi’ (Mondadori, 2023), immediately entered the best-seller lists.

Murgia He knew how to move from reflections on spirituality to social and political analysis, even to polemics about the modern temptations of fascism. She demonstrated with stubborn ease her commitment to gender equality, was proud of her “queer family” and also raised the flag of Sardinia – her hometown – and of Sardinian civilizations, from matriarchies rich in traditions and misunderstood, to the who gave voice to his best-known novel.

The writer has died from the tumor that had already tested her a few years ago and was one of the newest and most influential voices in contemporary Italian literature. Just a few months ago, on May 6, 2023, she revealed her illness to Aldo Cazzullo, during an interview on “Corriere della Sera”. She had little time left. She had also announced it more indirectly in her last book, ‘Three Bowls. Rituali per un anno di crisi’ (Mondadori, 2023), which immediately entered the top of the book lists and continues at the top, a novel of stories in which he dealt with the sudden cracks that turn lives upside down, mourning, pain, broken love: in the first of these stories he narrated the shock of discovering the disease.

In recent weeks, the deterioration has been rapid. In July she decided to marry Lorenzo Terenzi so that he could “have rights that there was no other way to obtain so quickly.” On social networks, she published photos of the wedding and made a request to readers: “No good wishes, because the rite that we would have liked does not yet exist. But it will exist and we want to help it be born.”