Re-discovering Oliver M. Sayler

Degree cum laude in Foreign Languages and Literature at University of Pavia (Russian, English), PhD in Modern Philology (XXth cycle n.s.). She is author of many essays about Eastern Europe Theatre and the world of jesters, storytellers and “fools for Christ” in Byzantine-Slavic tradition. She published the monographs: Le maschere della santità. Attori e figure del sacro nel teatro antico-russo (2004, Cesare Angelini Prize, Youth Section), I mestieri di Pantalone. La fortuna della maschera tra Venezia e la Russia (2007, Youth prize for study and research about Popular Culture in Veneto), Un treno per Eleonora Duse (2008). She realized the first Italian edition of I santi dell’antica Russia (2000) by Georgij Fedotov, and the volume Starec Afanasij. Un folle in Cristo dei nostri giorni (2005). Collaboration for the Italian edition of L’Apocalisse (2005) by Andrej Tarkovskij, with preface by Mario Luzi. She is the Italian translator of Michail Berman-Cikinovskij, for whom edited the novel Il tempo in prestito. Biografia di un medico scrittore tra Char’kov e Chicago (2008), the collection of poems Emigrai in Occidente. Ricordi in versi di un esule sovietico (2008), the three dramatic collections Il teatro di Devon Avenue. Scene di vita russa a Chicago (2009), Vita, morte, eternità. Trilogia drammatica di Pietrogrado (2009), Destini in scena tra Roma, Costantinopoli e Mosca. Miscellanea di testi teatrali con un dramma in versione bilingue (2010), and the collection of short stories Storie di migranti fra URSS e USA (2010). In 2003 she received the Prize for Youth Researcher in memory of Maria Corti, and in 2006 the International Prize “Foyer des Artistes” for her study and translation in Eastern Europe Theatre and Literature.