Sara De Simone

Sara De Simone (1987) was born in Caserta and lives in Rome. She holds a degree in Romance Philology from La Sapienza University in Rome and a PhD in Comparative Literature from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. She translated with Nadia Fusini the correspondence between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West (Scrivi sempre a mezzanotte, Donzelli, 2019; Feltrinelli 2023). She edited and translated La vita della vita. Diari di Katherine Mansfield (Donzelli 2023, Premio Fondazione De Sanctis per il saggio breve). Nel 2023 scrive l’introduzione alle poesie di Emily Dickinson (Einaudi Tascabili, 2023) ed è autrice di Nessuna come lei. Katherine Mansfield e Virginia Woolf: storia di un’amicizia (Neri Pozza, 2023) con cui ha vinto il Premio Rapallo – Sezione saggistica 2023. Nel 2024 pubblica L’atto sospeso. Azione e inazione dell’eroe dall’Iliade a Virginia Woolf (Viella) e cura per Feltrinelli Pura felicità, raccolta di racconti di Katherine Mansfield. Collabora con le pagine culturali de «Il manifesto», «La Stampa», «Il Tascabile», ed è autrice di cicli e puntate monografiche su Rai Radio 3. È una delle autrici del podcast Genealogie nato dalla collaborazione tra Solferino e Corriere della Sera con Inquiete Festival. All’interno del progetto ha curato quattro puntate dedicate a Emily Dickinson, da cui è nato il volume Una tranquilla vita da Vulcano (Solferino, 2025).
Nel 2025 l’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei le ha conferito il Premio Maria Teresa Messori Roncaglia ed Eugenio Mari per meriti nell’ambito della critica e della ricerca letteraria.

Una tranquilla vita da vulcano

Unclassifiable, nonconformist, ultra-modern: even today Emily Dickinson captivates us with the power of her verse and the mystery of her life. But was she really the “recluse poetess” whose story some continue to tell us? Or is there much more we should know about her? Hungry for words and happiness since childhood, an early observer of the world and nature, Emily Dickinson's youth is dense with encounters and affections: a passionate schoolgirl of botany and geology; charismatic ringleader of her classmates at Amherst Academy; avid reader of Shakespeare and the Brontë sisters, without disdaining a few successful romance novels, Emily Dickinson distinguished herself early on by the originality of her tastes and the independence of her choices. A cultured frequenter of the drawing room of the “Evergreens,” which she animates together with the most enlightened minds of the time, she lives surrounded by solid relationships: the intense bond with her brothers, the unbreakable fellowship with her beloved Susan Gilbert, the friendships with women and men of her time that she nurtures and cultivates even when, in her early thirties, she chooses for herself a secluded but never isolated existence. Sara De Simone draws an erratic and passionate portrait that does justice to one of the greatest poets in the history of literature: ironic, inspired, wild, ardent, just like a volcano, quiet only in appearance, Emily Dickinson looks out at us from the pages of this book, close and impregnable. And she continues to speak to us