Luigi Pirandello

Born on June 18, 1867 Luigi Pirandello was an Italian novelist, poet, short story author and dramatist. He won the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature. He has written hundreds of short stories, over 40 plays and tragic farces that lead into the theater of the absurd.
His family moved from Sicily to Palermo where Pirandello completed his high school education. He loved to read and focused on Italian poets and fantasy. He wrote his first poems in Palermo and fell in love with Lina, his cousin. Lina's family demanded that Pirandello quit school, learn the sulphur business and marry Lina. He visited the mines and began working with his father. This experience provided the foundation for II Fumo, Ciaula scopre la Luna and f the background for his book The Old and the Young.
Pirandello never did marry his cousin and in 1893 a group of friends encouraged him to begin narrative writing. He wrote his most famous work, Marta Ajala (1901). He also distributed his first collection of short stories Amori senza Amore. Pirandello married Antonietta Portulano in 1895. She had been cultivated by the nuns of San Vincenzo and was known to be highly subservient.
Pirandello continued writing throughout his marriage and these became some of his most productive years. In 1903 the family fortune was lost and his wife went into a mental depression. Pirandello contemplated suicide, but decided to remedy the situation by increasing his lessons and asking for compensation from the magazines he wrote for. He wrote The Late Mattia Pascal which was a resounding success. He was able to publish another collection of novellas, Erma Bifronte. He continued to publish novellas and short stories and Pirandello finished his fourth novel, Suo Marito.
Pirandello wrote sixteen dramas. His work started to attract critical attention and he began writing for leading lady Marta Abba. These plays include The Wives' Friend and As you Desire Me.
Luigi Pirandello completed his very prolific career when he passed away on December 10, 1936 in Rome, Italy.