Fausta Terni Cialente (29 November 1898 – 11 March 1994) was an Italiannovelist, journalist andpolitical activist.[1] She is a recipient of theStrega Prize.
Cialente was born on 29 November 1898 inCagliari,Sardinia. She was the second child of Alfredo Cialente, an army officer originally from theAbruzzo region in central Italy and Elsa Wieselberger who had trained as asoprano and came from a musical family inTrieste.[2] Her elder brotherRenato (1897–1943) became an actor and appeared in many films. Fausta's early life was marked by upheaval as the family followed the movements of her father. In 1921 she married Enrico Terni (1876–1960), a banker from a Jewish family of Italian origin who had settled inAlexandria,Egypt in the early nineteenth century. Enrico was a musician and a composer. Cialente's only daughter, Lionella (called Lili), was born in 1923. Although based in Alexandria the family would spend long holidays in Italy.[2]
Cialente's first novelNatalia, completed in 1927, treated the lesbian relationship of an unhappily married woman. It was published in Rome in 1930 and won the Dieci Savi Prize. When the initial print run of 3000 copies had been sold, her publisher wanted to print more copies but the censors in theFascist regime asked for two sections of the book to be revised. Cialente refused and the book was not reprinted but in 1932 a French translation was published in France. In 1930 her short story "Marianna" was published in the literary magazineL'Italia Letteraria which was edited byGiambattista Angioletti. Her first novel with anEgyptian setting,Cortile aCleopatra, was completed in 1931. She tried unsuccessfully to persuade the prestigious publisherMondadori to accept the work. It was serialized inL'Italia letteraria in 1935 and published as a book in 1936.[2]
From 1940 she wroteantifascist pamphlets and made daily broadcasts from RadioCairo against theFascist regime in Italy. In 1947 she returned to Italy, living there until moving to England in 1984.[3]
Many of Cialente's subsequent stories were set in Egypt. "The position of her female characters preoccupies Cialente throughout her work, not least in the semi-autobiographicalLe quattro ragazze Wieselberger",[1] which won theStrega Prize.[3]
She died inPangbourne on 11 March 1994.[2]
