Biography
Born in an upper class Victorian family and pupil of the writer Cesare Pavese, she brings in Italy four generations of American authors. In 1949 she marries the architect Ettore Sottsass with whom she lives in Milan (Italy). Since 1973, after the crisis of her childless marriage, Pivano starts living for thirty years also in Rome alongside Ottavio Rosati, the young director and psychoanalyst who in 2001 will dedicate to her the docufilm Generazioni d'amore: Le quattro Americhe di Fernanda Pivano (2001). Her translation of 'Spoon River Anthology' by Lee Masters is a best seller. With Ettore Sottsass Pivano published the review 'Pianeta Fresco' and other literary experiments. In 1956 she made with him the first trip to the United States which will be followed by numerous other to America, Japan and many other countries. After translating and studying the works of the major American classics, including Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, she promotes writers of the Beat Generation: Allen Ginsberg (who became her close friend), , William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Gregory Corso and authors such as Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski. She is a star of literary jet set and continues to report to the Italian public and critics the talented US writers who would soon be imposed on the international literary scene, including Erica Jong, Jay McInerney, Harold Brodkey and Bret Easton Ellis. With her participation to Giocare il sogno, filmare il gioco (1990) and to Da Storia Nasce Storia (1991) Pivano collaborated in introducing in Italy the Psycho Cinema project of Jacob Levi Moreno. Pivano was also one of the first promoters of an Italian Psychodrama Theater ('Il Teatro del Tempo') conceived as a version of the Beacon Theater (New York) that she described for 'Il Corriere della Sera'. She has published forty books of essays and hundreds of literary articles. In 2001 Pivano is also protagonist of Fernanda Pivano: A Farewell to Beat (2001) by Luca Facchini, a documentary about her journey to America to find friends and loved ones. In 1998 the businessman and patron Luciano Benetton opened an important structure destined to house Fernanda Pivano's book, letters, jewels and documents, that later will become part of 'Fondazione Corriere della Sera' with the Pivano Found directed by the publisher Michele Concina. She died in Milan in 2009. In March 2010, Bompiani publishes the second volume of the autobiography (Diari: 1974-2009) completely excluding her life in the old roman palace described by in her novels 'La mia kasbah' and 'Cos'e più la virtù' and by Ottavio Rosati in the hypertext 'Quattro Decenni di Plays con la Pivano e la Von Franz' (plays.it/ipod). On September 4, 2011, the documentary by Teresa Marchesi "Pivano blues" with Abel Ferrara and the singers Jovanotti and Vasco Rossi is presented at the 68th Venice International Film Festival. Pivano has received numerous public awards and honors including Premio Monselice for the translation (1975), Premio letterario Giovanni Comisso (1985), Premio Estense (1998), J. L. Moreno Medal for Psychodrama (1994), Premio Grinzane Cavour (2003), Premio Tenco (2005), Premio De Sica for literature (2006) and two of the highest Orders of the Italian Republic: 'Cavaliere di Gran Croce di Italia' (1997) and 'Medaglia d'Oro ai benemeriti della Cultura e dell'Arte' (2004).
