Orsola Nemi

Orsola Nemi (born Flora Vezzani; 11 June 1903 – 8 February 1985) was an Italian writer and translator.

Biography As a girl, Nemi moved to La Spezia with her father, an infantry officer. He died on the Karst Plateau on October 15, 1915. At three years of age, Nemi fell ill with poliomyelitis. She survived but was marked by the disease for the rest of her life.

Henry Furst, a celebrated United States writer transferred to Italy to work for the New York Times. Nemi and he fell in love and were married. After meeting Furst, he helped to launch her literary career. Nemi met the editor Eugenio Montale, who published her poetry in the review. From her publications, she was assigned to collaborate on the enormous Dizionario delle Opere e dei Personaggi. She also collaborated with writer Leo Longanesi and translated for him many French authors, including Alexis de Tocqueville, Honoré de Balzac, and one work by Gustave Flaubert.

Nemi's career stretched from the 1930s to the 1980s. She wrote novels, short stories, fables, essays, and prayers and wrote for publications like Gazzetta del Popolo, Il Messaggero, L'Osservatore Romano, Il Tempo, and Il Borghese. She also wrote for the theater: in 1961, she wrote Camicie Rosse to celebrate the centenary of the Proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy.

After the death of her husband in 1967, she composed Il meglio di Henry Furst in his honor. In 1972, Nemi wrote the pamphlet I Cristiani Dimezzati, in which she criticized the modernism of the Catholic church after the Second Vatican Council. In 1980, she finished a work she had begun with Furst: a biography of Catherine de' Medici.

Name Nemi's birthname was Flora Vezzani. Her pen name, Orsola Nemi, is derived from the day that her father died, October 15, 1915, which is dedicated to Sant'Orsola. The second half of her name is an abbreviation for the Latin word "Nemini" , to symbolize her shy and independent nature.

Publications Writing and editing Rococò, Milan, Bompiani, 1940 Cronaca, Milan, Bompiani, 1942 Nel paese di Gattafata, ed. Documento, 1944; Bompiani, 2017 Lena e il Bombo, Milan, Rosa e Ballo, 1944 Anime Disabitate, Roma Atlantica, 1945 Maddalena della Palude, Milan, Longanesi, 1949 Rotta a nord, Firenze, Vallecchi, 1955 I Gioielli Rubati, Milan, Bompiani, 1958 Il sarto stregato, Milan, Ceschina, 1960 Camicie rosse, Milan, Edizioni del Borghese, 1961 Le Signore Barabbino, Milan, Rizzoli, 1965 Taccuino di una donna timida, Milan, Edizioni del Borghese, 1969 Il tesoro delle Galline, Milan, I.P.L, 1970 L'Astrologo distratto, Rome, ed. Volpe, 1971 I Cristiani Dimezzati, Milan, Rusconi, 1972 Caterina Dè Medici, Milan, Rusconi, 1980 Henry Furst, Il meglio di Henry Furst, edited by Orsola Nemi, preface by Mario Soldati, introduction by Ernst Jünger, Milan, Longanesi, 1970

Translations Gustave Flaubert, L'educazione sentimentale, Milan-Rome, Rizzoli, 1942 Scandali e personaggi: scelta dalle memorie di Saint-Simon, 2 vol., Rome, Documento Libraio Editore, 1944 John Reed, Dieci giorni che fecero tremare il mondo, Milano, Longanesi, 1946 Gustave Flaubert, Bouvard e Pécuchet, Collana La Gaja Scienza n.5, Milano, Longanesi, 1946 Ben Hecht, Il diavolo a New York, Collana La Gaja Scienza n.12, Milan, Longanesi, 1947 Evelyn Waugh, Sempre più bandiere, Milan, Bompiani, 1949 Arthur Rimbaud, Una stagione all'inferno, Collana Piccola Biblioteca, Milan, Longanesi, 1951 Herman Melville, Benito Cereno ed altri racconti, translated by O. Nemi and Henry Furst, Collana Piccola Biblioteca n. 32–34, Milan, Longanesi, 1951 Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami, BUR n.936, Milan, Rizzoli, 1955 Il Meglio di Baudelaire, preface by Henry Furst, Milan, Longanesi, 1955. Mac Hyman, Tempi brutti per i sergenti, Milan, Bompiani, 195 Moses I. Finley, Il mondo di Odisseo, translation by Henry Furst and Orsola Nemi, Bologna, Cappelli, 1956 Albert Bessières, S. J., Vita di Gesù, Collana universale n.16/17, Bologna, Cappelli, 1958 Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, I Pittori francesi del XVIII secolo, Collana I Marmi n.14, Milan, Longanesi, 1959 Gustave Flaubert, Romanzi e Racconti (1869-1880) · Teatro, edited by Renato Prinzhofer and Silvio Giovaninetti, Milan, Mursia, 1961 [translation of La tentazione di Sant'Antonio and Tre racconti] Vintilă Horia, Dio è nato in esilio: Diario di Ovidio a Tomi, Milano, Edizioni Il Borghese, 1961 Graham Greene, Inedito, Milano, Longanesi, 1962 Vintila Horia, La settima lettera, Milano, Edizioni Il Borghese, 1965 Michel de Saint Pierre, I nuovi preti, Milano, Edizioni Il Borghese, 1965 Edward Gibbon, Viaggio in Europa, Collana Vecchia Europa e nuova, Milano, Edizioni Il Borghese, 1965 Robert Brasillach, I sette colori, Milano, Edizioni Il Borghese, 1966 Dorothy M. Johnson, Tomahawk, Prefazione di Jack Schaefer, Collezione La ginestra n.125, Milano, Longanesi, 1972 Pearl S. Buck, La casa dei fiori, Milano, BUR Rizzoli, 1972