Biography

Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer, best known for his many acclaimed stage plays and several successful novels such as The Late Mattia Pascal (1904) and One, No One and One Hundred Thousand (1926). He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his almost magical power to turn psychological analysis into good theatre. " Pirandello's works include about 40 plays, some of which are written in Sicilian. Pirandello's tragic farces are often seen as forerunners of the Theatre of the Absurd. His first major play, Right You Are (if You Think You Are) (1917), explored the relativity of truth, a lifelong subject for Pirandello.