Listen "Thea Lenarduzzi: Stay Open to All the Languages"
Episode Synopsis
Thea Lenarduzzi is a writer, broadcaster and editor. Her debut, Dandelions, a family memoir and cultural history of migration between Italy and England, won the 2020 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize and was shortlisted for the Ackerley Prize for 'literary autobiography of outstanding merit'. The Tower, a story about storytelling, blends history, fiction, memoir, fairy tale and folklore to explore power and its abuses (forthcoming, October 2025; preorder: bit.ly/42kdRI4). She is working on a biography of Natalia Ginzburg, Collapsing Houses: Pieces of Natalia Ginzburg. We discussed Thea's experience of living and writing between two cultures and what it means to of it, a British-Italian identity. Thea reflected on the legacy of her family history in Dandelions, the feeling of being at home in two places and the influence of her European schooling. She also spoke about her deep admiration for Ginzburg, the challenges of bilingual writing and the richness of embracing multiple languages in her creative life.
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