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Il cuore, la
guerra e la parola
(Heart, War and Word)
Ombra editrice - 1991
In 1991, during the Gulf War, a group of Italian women
writers (Adele Cambria, Maria Rosa Cutrufelli, Luce
d’Eramo, Cecilia Gatto Trocchi, Vanna Gazzola
Stacchini, Elena Gianini Belotti, Armanda Guiducci,
Laura Lilli, Dacia Maraini, Lidia Menapace, Lia Migale,
Marisa Rusconi, Goliarda Sapienza, Clara Sereni and
Simona Weller) met in order to reflect, one after
one, on themes about war, love and writing. These
meetings generated a collective book which turned
into a precious and unique historical testimony. |
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Il Pantano
del Diavolo
(The Devil’s Swamp)
Editori & Associati - 1994
An intricately dramatic love story reaches its finale
against the background of a winter in Cote d’Azur
and an esoteric Paris. The title of this short and
mysterious novel is inspired by a boat-theatre along
the Seine River. To increase the mystery there is
also the suggestive appearance of the writer Alba
de Céspedes. |
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Ritratto di
Angelica
(Portrait of Angelica)
Avagliano Editore - 1998
In 1807, just a few months before dying, the famous
Neo-classical painter Angelica Kauffmann found refugee
in her Roman studio where she burned letters and documents.
What was she hiding, which secret was she erasing?
Through a voyage in time, Weller analyzes the mysterious
and fascinating life of this important 18th-century
artist following her in the European courts of the
time: from Rome to Naples, from Venice to Milan, from
Paris to London. This book is simultaneously a travel
through the history and civilization of a great century
and through the inner soul of an extraordinary artist.
Angelica, the woman, anticipates time while experiencing
the contradictions and difficulties of those who aim
at reconciling love and art, success and private life.
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Una Rosa nel Cuore
(A Rose in the Heart)
Avagliano Editore - 2000
This novel takes place in Paris at the end of the
19th century, precisely in the artists’ enclave
of Montmarte, where a courageous young girl, named
Marie Clémentine, begins her life as the future
Suzanne Valadon.
In order to survive she works as an acrobat and as
a model of famous painters
(Puvis de Chevannes, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec…),
yet her dream is to become an artist herself. Thanks
to Lautrec’s and Degas’ admiration, she
was, eventually, able to become an artist. Suzanne
liked to define herself as the “daughter of the
tempest” or a “creature of another world”
and her origins are, actually, rather obscure. She
was not educated to become a woman in the conventional
way and, thus, her creativity, talent, sexuality bloomed
with a kind of freedom usually allowed to men only.
This novel, rigorously documented, sheds light on
the every day life of the impressionists and, above
all, it clears from any superficiality the legend
of Suzanne Valadon, justly defined a rose in the heart
of Montmartre. |
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Suzanne
Avagliano Editore - 2002
Suzanne, the magic of Paris. “She had two big
light extraordinary eyes, her hair was combed in bands
and more than walking she seemed to dance….”
This is the way in which, in 1909, the young painter
André Utter described Suzanne Valadon at the
age of forty-two. Utter had married Suzanne and together
with their son, Maurice Utrillo, formed a cursed triad
among the geniuses of the time: Apollinaire, Picasso,
Max Jacob, Modigliani. But who was in reality Suzanne
Valadon? Simona Weller studied, with attentive analysis
and rare passion, Valadon’s life and history
digging into the depth of her past as an acrobat,
model, mother by fate, lover for fun, painter by vocation.
After having dealt with her youth in the previous
novel “Una rosa nel cuore” (A Rose in the
Heart), in this second book on Valadon, Weller turns
her attention toward the artist’s maturity—contemporary
with Josephine Baker, Colette, Coco Chanel— especially,
to when Suzanne, among explosions of happiness, inevitably
confronted the trivial banality of evil.. |
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Memorie di
una pittrice perbene
(Memories of a Well to Do Woman Painter)
Avagliano Editore - 2004
This novel takes place in Rome in the time of Totò,
Fellini and De Sica. The protagonist is a young girl
who, just after high school, dreams about her future
life as a painter. The novel narrates the intricate
net of difficulties and extraordinary meetings that
Laudomia Giglioni had to confront. Her life goal consecrated
her as an international artist and enabled her to
understand how much sorrow she had left behind. Nurtured
by pictorial myths (Gaugain) and good readings (Conrad,
Simone de Beauvoir), Laudomia fought against the prejudices
and conventions of the post-war society facing, with
the peculiar energy of the new type of woman, travels
and adventures, creativity and sexual freedom. This
novel can be simultaneously visited as an art- exhibition
and read with the curiosity of an intimate diary—it
is a jewel with memorable gems: the meeting with Mirò,
the friendship with De Chirico, the revelation of
Sandro Penna, the solidarity of Paola and Rita Levi
Montalcini… |
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