The Author

Biography and bibliography

Susanna Tamaro was born in Trieste in 1957. After graduating as a teacher, in 1976 she moved to Rome and enrolled in the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, from which she graduated as a film director and started to work initially as an assistant director for Salvatore Samperi and then made a number of documentaries for television.
In 1981, during a month long stay in a small village on the border between Austria and Hungary, she wrote her first book, entitled Illmitz. In the years that followed she wrote various other novels and short stories, all constantly rejected. In 1989 she at last managed to publish La testa fra le nuvole, which won the Elsa Morante Opera Prima Award. During that same year, following a serious attack of bronchial asthma, she left Rome for a small village in the Umbrian hills. She wrote a collection of short stories entitled Per voce sola (1991), which earned her the respect of influential critics, but was not as much appreciated by readers. This book was followed in 1992 by the children’s book Cuore di ciccia and two years later by the bestseller Va’ dove ti porta il cuore. It sold two and half million copies in the first year and fourteen million copies now sold all over the world. It became the greatest Italian literary success of the century. Va’ dove ti porta il cuore was made into a film by Cristina Comencini in 1995. In 1994 Susanna Tamaro published the children’s book entitled Il cerchio magico followed, in 1997, by Anima mundi and by Cara Mathilda, an imaginary correspondence on spiritual subjects with a friend living in Africa.
In 1998 she published Tobia e l’angelo, again for children.
Far from the literary world and social life, Susanna Tamaro currently lives in the country near Orvieto, surrounded by her beloved animals.
In addition to writing and to her passion for martial arts, she also devotes herself to humanitarian aid and development with the Tamaro Foundation, set up in 2000 and financed with the income from her books.

By
Ilario Gaudioso
Salvatore Manco
Giuseppe Primicerio
Giovanni Ostieri