Sandra Petrignani, born in Piacenza, lives between Rome and the Umbrian countryside. Her first book Le signore della scrittura (La Tartaruga, 1984) is a collection of interviews with ten Italian writers. Since publishing her first novel, Navigazioni di Circe (Theoria, 1987), Petriginani has been praised for her integration of autobiography, fiction, and historical research into her narrative works. She was a finalist for the Strega Prize twice, first for La scrittrice abita qui (Neri Pozza, 2002) and subsequently for La Corsara. Ritratto di Natalia Ginzburg (Neri Pozza, 2018), for which she won The Bridge Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2018.