Francesco Sorti
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Francesco Sorti

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The Italian husband-and-wife writing team Rita Monaldi & Francesco Sorti has set an unusual record. Although selling over 2 million copies in 26 languages and 60 countries, they remained unpublished for almost fifteen years in their native country and in the original Italian language.

Their historical debut novel Imprimatur (2002), set in Rome in the Baroque age, is based on true documents discovered by the two writers in the Vatican Archives. The documents jeopardize the reputation of pope Innocent XI (1676-1689), beatified in 1956 and a candidate for canonization in 2002. After climbing the Italian charts, Imprimatur disappeared mysteriously from the Top Ten and the bookstores. According to media reports the Italian publisher of Imprimatur, Silvio Berlusconi’s Mondadori group, was put under political pressure and forced to take the book off of the market.

Monaldi & Sorti decided thus to make their literary career outside of Italy and are now based in Vienna. In 2015 Imprimatur was reissued in Italy by a new publisher and once more found itself in the Italian Top Tens. In the meanwhile the writing duo has published 12 historical novels with great success of public and critical acclaim all around the world. According to UK, French and Dutch media they are 'the heirs of Umberto Eco'.

Their novel Malaparte - Death Like Me was shortlisted at the Premio Strega, Italy’s most important literary contest.

Their three latest books are the trilogy 'DANTE BY SHAKESPEARE" the fictional discovery of the first draft of Shakespeare's lost play about Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy. On the second tome, titled 'Ahi, serva Italia!' ("Ah, Italy enslaved!"), a street theatre competition was launched 2022 in Italy: street performances inspired by the book. The competition was sponsored by the Luigi Einaudi Foundation and the Dante Alighieri Society.
The finalists performed extracts from the book in the most beautiful Italian squares throughout the summer. The award ceremony for the winners was initially planned at Gigi Proietti's Globe Theatre, the capital's Shakespearean venue par excellence, but after the theatre's structural collapse, it found one of the capital's most exclusive and prestigious coulisse: Dante's House in Rome opened its doors to the event. Testimonials for the prize were two artists with close ties to Dante and Shakespeare: director Pupi Avati and actress Monica Guerritore, who called the duo Monaldi & Sorti 'art directors of the written page'.
The finalists came from ten Italian regions. The best were awarded a prize in the youth category and some special prizes, plus the main prize awarded to a trio of companies ex aequo. Media coverage: https://urlis.net/55ba19bc
The evening was hosted by Daniela Vergara, the historical face of Tg2 RAI, whom Italians particularly remember for her long years at the Quirinale. Each of the three winning ensembles with equal merit was awarded the sculpture 'Shakespeare's Dante', a work by the Ravenna sculptor and illustrator Luca Tarlazzi (creator among others of covers for authors such as Ken Follett, Andrea Camilleri, Patricia Cornwell and Valerio Massimo Manfredi): a bust of Dante holds in his hand, as if he were Hamlet, the classic skull on which stands a jester's cap, thus summarising the three symbols of the initiative and the inspiring novel: Dante, Shakespeare and street theatre. The award ceremony was aired by RAI Cultura: https://urlis.net/f6pcvuck

In February 2023, actress Isabel Russinova made a short film about a scene from the novel Ahi, serva Italia! for the web channels of the Dante Alighieri Society. The short film is followed by a commentary by Professor Raffaele Pinto, Dante scholar at the Universitat de Barcelona: https://urlis.net/399gm3gn
On 16th February 2024 is going to be published the last book of the trilogy: "Dante by Shakespeare III. How hard a path is".

On the trilogy was announced by RAI a fiction series: https://urlis.net/mmop3nm4
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