Gabriella Zalapi

Author of Ilaria, or The Conquest of Disobedience

Winner of the Prix Femina des Lycéens 2024, Prix Millepages 2024 and Prix Blù Jean-Marc Roberts 2024.

The artist and writer Gabriella Zalapì was born (1972) to an English-Italian-Swiss family in Milan, and now lives in Paris. Her previous novel Antonia (2019) received the Grand Prix de l’héroïne Madame Figaro, and the Prix Biblomedia. Zalapì uses her own family history as the basis for her work, taking photographs, archive material, and memoirs and composing them into a disquieting play of history and fiction.

Adriana Hunter said: "I so loved translating Ilaria that I was tempted to slow down towards the end – I just didn’t want to be parted from this endearing, bewildered child. I really admire Gabriella Zalapi’s restrained storytelling: the book is a masterclass in ‘show don’t tell’."