Luigi Pirandello

Born in Agrigento, Sicily, in 1867, Luigi Pirandello became one of Italy’s most important modern writers. He wrote novels, short stories, poetry, and especially plays, and he studied philology in Bonn before fully devoting himself to literature.

Pirandello is widely remembered for works such as The Late Mattia Pascal, One, No One and One Hundred Thousand, and the groundbreaking play Six Characters in Search of an Author. Again and again, his writing returns to unstable identity, shifting truth, and the masks people wear in everyday life.

In 1934, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his contribution to dramatic art. He died in Rome in 1936, but his influence on modern theater and fiction has lasted far beyond his lifetime.