Francesca Melandri
Senior Fellow 2023–2024

Francesca Melandri (born 1964 in Rome, Italy) is a screenwriter, novelist, and documentarian. After a long career as a screenwriter for film and television, she made her debut as a writer in 2010 with her first novel Eva dorme (Eva sleeps), set in the context of South Tyrolean terrorism. Shortly after, in 2012 she published her second novel, Più alto del mare (Higher than the sea) with Premio Campiello. Her third novel, Sangue Giusto (Right blood), published in 2017 by Premio Sila, was selected for the Premio Strega and was awarded by Spiegel as International Novel of the Year. Her novels have received numerous awards and translations in Italy and abroad. In 2021, Francesca was a fellow of the DAAD Berlin Artists Program. She is also a co-founder of PEN Berlin.

Francesca is Visiting Professor in Italian Literature and Culture at ETH Zurich. As part of her fellowship at the Collegium, on October 25, Francesca will talk with the author Zora del Buono (most recently The Marshalless, 2020) about writing at the intersection of fiction, history, and politics. The event will take place at the Literaturhaus and is part of the program of the festival Zürich liest.