Beatrice Masini

Beatrice Masini was born in Milan, where she now lives with her son and daughter, in 1962. She studied at the Università Cattolica di Milano and has dedicated herself to children’s and young adult literature in a variety of roles. She worked for a textbook publishing house as an editor, as a journalist for various magazines, and she writes for the children’s magazine »Ciao Amici«. Since 2005 she has been the chief editor of children’s picture books at the »Rizzoli« and »Fabbri Editori« publishing houses. Her children’s book »La casa delle bambole non si tocca« (t: Don’t touch the dollhouse) was published in 1998 and was awarded the Premio Martinsicuro in 1999. With over forty picture books, first reader books, short stories and novels, Masini ranks among the top authors of children’s and young adult literature in Italy.

Masini sees her works as »inner adventure stories«, which tell of discoveries, fears and hopes. She knows the day-to-day life of children as well as she knows the world of their daydreams and wishes. She also doesn’t shrink from grappling with challenging themes. Thus, in her prize-winning novel »Se è una bambina« (1998; t: When it’s a girl), she portrays the imaginary dialogue between a six year-old girl and her deceased mother. As serious as she is playful, Masini explores – together with Roberto Piumini – the romantic world of one’s first love in »Ciao, tu« (1998; t: Hello, you). One day Hugo discovers an anonymous message in his rucksack. While he attempts to find out who is hiding behind the pseudonym »Eulalia«, a correspondence full of confessions, arguments and tentative closeness unfolds. Masini fluidly and lyrically moves through the story in »L’estate gigante« (2005; t: A great summer), telling a story of puberty’s growing pains. Searching for her identity, thirteen year-old Chiara contemplates her surroundings while on holiday at the sea – the good-looking lifeguard, her friend Ludovica, who is already becoming a woman, and the children she is in charge of – and thereby floats into a baffling world of make-believe, until a tragic event catapults her into a new stage of life. »Beatrice Masini describes with great sensitivity the transition from childhood to adulthood, with all of its scruples and melancholy, but also its continual moments of happiness«, wrote »La Joie de lire«. Masani has also written three volumes of a biographical series for children in which she presents famous women. In »Signore e signorine. Corale greca« (2002; t: Women and misses. Greek song), which won the Premio Pippi (2004), she turns figures from ancient Greece, such as Electra, Antigone and Iphigeneia, into modern narrators of their own stories.

Among her internationally renowned works is the »Scarpetta Rosa« series (2005 et seq.), which tells of ten year-old Zoe, who attends one of the most famous ballet schools in the world. Masini has also translated works from Anne Fine, Allen Kurzweil, Celia Rees and J.K. Rowling from English into Italian.

© international literature festival berlin

Giù la zip
Fabbri
Milano, 2000

Se è una bambina
Fabbri
Milano, 2001

Diario di una casa vuota
EL
San Dorligo della Valle, 2004
[Ill: Michel Fuzellier]

Signore e signorine. Corale greca
EL
San Dorligo della Valle, 2004
[Ill: Octavia Monaco]

L’estate gigante
Fabbri
Milano, 2005

Una sposa buffa, buffíssíma, bellíssíma
Arka
Milano, 2005
[Ill: Anna Laura Cantone]

Ballerina in Spitzenschuhen. Aller Anfang ist leicht
Random House
München, 2007
[Ü: Katharina Schmidt]

Ciao, tú
[Mit: Roberto Piumini]
Fabbri
Milano, 2007

Übersetzung: Nicola Bardola, Katharina Schmidt