Simona
Lo
Iacono
A long-time judge (currently at the court in Catania), she collaborates with various journals and magazines. She held a literary salon, inviting writers and artists, as well as reading clubs and literary and legal lectures. She is a member of EUGIUS, a European association of ‘judge-writers’ and the Italian Society of Law and Literature (SIDL) founded at the University of Bologna. On Massimo Maugeri’s literary blog Letteratitudine, she runs a column dealing with rules and words, literature and law, titled Letteratura è diritto, letteratura è vita (Italian: Literature is law, literature is life).
Her first novel, Tu non dici parole, (Perrone, 2008) received the Vittorini Opera Prima Award. In 2010, she was awarded the Premio Internazionale Sicilia ‘Il Paladino’ international prize in fiction and the Festival del talento città di Siracusa prize.
In 2010, she published a lengthy short story written with Massimo Maugeri, La coda di pesce che inseguiva l’amore (Sampognaro & Pupi, 2010), which was awarded the ‘Più a Sud di Tunisi’ prize). In 2011, she published the novel titled Stasera Anna dorme presto (Cavallo di Ferro), for which she received the Ninfa Galatea award (and was shortlisted for Premio Città di Viagrande).
In 2013, Cavallo di Ferro published her novel Effatà (which won the Premio Martoglio and the Donna siciliana 2014 prizes in literature). She is running a literary column Scrittori allo specchio (Italian: Writers in the mirror) in La Sicilia. Moreover, she volunteers in prisons, running literary, writing, and drama courses, and using all the artistic means available, to implement the idea of rehabilitating prisoners referred to in Article 27 of the Italian constitution.
In 2016, E/O published her novel Le streghe di Lenzavacche (which reached the semi-final of the Premio Strega 2016 competition and won the Premio Chianti prize). She also wrote the novels Il morso (Neri Pozza), which won the Premio Racalmare-Sciascia in 2017) and L’albatro (the winner of the 2020 ‘Città di Erice’ Award). In April 2021, her latest novel La tigre di Noto will be published.
pic. from the author's archive