| Summary: | This article discusses the influence of Pirandello’s works on the Sicilian writer Goliarda Sapienza (Catania 1924 – Gaeta 1996). Criticism on Sapienza has so far focused on identifying major themes and structures of her works, and inserting them in a context of literary and philosophical parallels, inside and outside of Italy.1 This article inaugurates a new direction in Sapienza studies, consisting in the investigation of her relationship―as actress and writer―to one of her fundamental sources, Pirandello, thus also adding a new important element to the study of Pirandello’s legacy. Sapienza’s encounter with Pirandello came early in her life, and its effects were long-lasting and significant. Before becoming a writer of novels, poems, film and play scripts, she trained and worked as an actress in Rome, performing in several plays by Pirandello, and she repeatedly cites Pirandello as part of a literary and theatrical tradition that left a substantial mark on her works. References to Pirandello are indeed ubiquitous in her works, diaries and letters, and she often responds to him as a source of inspiration and a model. She writes for example in her diary: ‘Pirandello sempre vivo qui con noi, nelle nostre storie. Dopo di lui non si può inventare più nulla, e divaghiamo ancora nelle nostre opere insieme a Freud e Marx.’2 [‘Pirandello is always alive here with us, in our stories. After him, we can no longer invent anything, and we still wander off in our works together with Freud and Marx’]. And again: ‘Aiuto Pirandello, aiuto!’3 [‘Help me, Pirandello, help me!’]; ‘Ho cercato […] forse “a modo mio” come direbbe Pirandello’4 [‘I tried, perhaps “in my own way”, as Pirandello would say]; ‘ho cominciato a lavorare. Miracolo! Durerà? Con l’aiuto di dio Pirandello forse...’ [‘I started working. Miracle! Will it last? With the help of god Pirandello, perhaps…’].
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