Barbara Alberti

Barbara Alberti — Biography

Barbara Alberti was born on 11 April 1943 in Umbertide to a poor family; at fifteen she moved with them to Rome, where she went on to study philosophy. From the 1970s she built a prolific career as a novelist known for provocative, genre-crossing fiction such as Memorie Malvage and Vangelo secondo Maria, alongside biographical works including Gelosa di Majakovskij on the poet Mayakovsky, for which she won the Alghero Woman Prize in 2003, and a book on the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. She also wrote Il promesso sposo, a "fake autobiography" profiling art critic Vittorio Sgarbi. Alongside her fiction she worked as a screenwriter, with credits including Il portiere di notte (1974) and Melissa P. (2005). Since 2009 she has written a weekly column for Il Fatto Quotidiano and has appeared as a commentator on several television talk shows. In 2019 she stepped in front of the camera in Ferzan Özpetek's The Goddess of Fortune, playing Elena Muscarà alongside Stefano Accorsi and Jasmine Trinca. She married screenwriter and producer Amedeo Pagani, with whom she has two children.