Margherita Guidacci (25 April 1921 – 19 June 1992) was an Italian poet.

Early life and career

Born in Florence, Guidacci graduated from the University of Florence in 1943 and traveled to England and Ireland in 1947. After moving to Rome upon marriage, the poet taught English language and literature at the Liceo scientifico Cavour for ten years, from 1965 to 1975. Guidacci obtained the libera docenza ("free teaching") in the English language and literature in 1972, and from 1975 to 1981, she taught English and American Literature at the University of Macerata and the College of Maria Assunta attached to the Vatican.

Poetry and translations

The poetry of Margherita Guidacci is deeply spiritual but not in the religious sense. Rather her poems include profound sentiments and a view of life as a search for regeneration and resurrection from death. Guidacci regarded life as a passage and its desolation and pain a means toward transformation beyond death. Guidacci is noted for her Italian translations of English poets, including John Donne's sermons and Emily Dickinson's poetry. T. S. Eliot and Elizabeth Bishop are among other poets Guidacci translated into her native language.

Literary awards

In 1978, Guidacci was awarded the Biella Poesia literary prize for her collection Il vuoto e le forme. Guidacci traveled to the United States in 1986, and was the recipient of the 1987 Caserta Prize for her complete works. Among literary prizes Guidacci was awarded are: Carducci Prize, 1957; Ceppo Prize, 1971; Lerici Prize, 1972; Gabbici Prize, 1974; Seanno Prize, 1976.

Paparazzi

The English usage of the word paparazzi is credited to Margherita Guidacci's translation of Victorian writer George Gissing's travel book By the Ionian Sea (1901). A character in Margherita Guidacci's Sulle Rive dello Ionio (1957) is a restaurant-owner named Coriolano Paparazzo. The name was in turn chosen by Ennio Flaiano, the screenwriter of the Federico Fellini film, La Dolce Vita, who got it from Guidacci's book. By the late 1960s, the word, usually in the Italian plural form paparazzi, had entered the English lexicon as a generic term for intrusive photographers.

Personal life

Guidacci married the sociologist Luca Pinna in 1949. In 1957, they moved to Rome. Her husband died in 1977, and she continued to live in Rome until her death in 1992.

Published works

Translations