Francesca Duranti has contributed to post-World War II Italian literature through her close examination of personal experiences, especially her relationships with her mother and husbands, and through her exploration of the dynamics of writing fiction. Duranti's novels show how life affords the material for art and how one's devotion to art can affect one's life. In La casa sul lago della luna (1984; translated as The House on Moon Lake, 1986), her most famous work, the writer-protagonist becomes so entangled with his creation that he cannot escape it. Duranti often focuses on a woman's desire to free herself from external control and become a whole, independent, functioning person. Her work appeals to a spectrum of readers and has appeared in translation in Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Germany, France, Bulgaria, Spain, Brazil, and Israel as well as the United States.

Born on 2 January 1935 in Genova as Maria Francesca Rossi, Duranti spent...