Domenico Starnone

|years active=1970-present |spouse = Anita Raja |children = Viola Starnone |occupation= Novelist, journalist, teacher and screenwriter |nationality = Italian }}

Domenico Starnone (born 15 February 1943) is an Italian writer, screenwriter, and journalist.

His work has been translated into English, German and several other languages. These include ''Prima esecuzione'' (2007, as ''First Execution'', 2009) and ''Confidenza'' (2019, as ''Trust'', 2019).

His novel ''Via Gemito'' won Italy's highest literary honour, the Strega Prize, as well as the Naples Prize for Literature, in 2001 and was also a finalist in the prestigious Campiello Prize prize that year. Said to be his masterpiece, the novel centers on a Neopolitan train conductor, Federí, facing a life filled with frustration, who unloads his dissatisfaction on his wife and eldest son, the novel's narrator. Translated into English by Oonagh Stransky, ''The House on Via Gemito'' was longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2024.

His thirteenth work of fiction, ''Ties'' was his second to be translated into English, and was awarded the Bridge Prize in 2017, The Bridge Book Award project seeks to unite Italian and American cultures and strengthen mutual understanding.

In reports dated 2006 (by Luigi Galella), and more recent work in 2017 by Arjuna Tuzzi and Michele A. Cortelazzo of the University of Padova, Starnone was proposed as the author writing under the pen name, Elena Ferrante - or possibly his wife, Anita Raja. In published interviews, Ferrante has dismissed the allegations, saying "My identity, my sex can be found in my writing." And suggesting that the attention to the question is more illustrative of the character of contemporary Italians than anything else. Provided by Wikipedia