Melania G. Mazzucco was born in Rome from the Mazzucco family of Tufo di Minturno, Lazio is an award-winning author and novelist, celebrated around the world for her richly crafted novels and her vast expertise in art history. She graduated from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and the Sapienza University of Rome with a degree in History of Modern and Contemporary Literature.

She made her debut in fiction with Il bacio della Medusa (Medusa's Kiss, 1996, 2022), followed by La camera di Baltus (Baltus’ Room, 1998, 2023), and Lei così amata (She, So Loved, 2000, 2012), about the Swiss writer and traveller Annemarie Schwarzenbach, has been published in 2000, and awarded with the Premio Napoli. In 2007, Mazzucco translated into Italian and edited a selection of Annemarie Schwarzenbach’s short stories, La gabbia dei falconi (Bei Diesem Regen. Erzählungen, 1934/1935).

Her novel Vita (2003, 2014) obtained the Premio Strega, Italy’s most important literary award. In Spain, it won the International Prize Arcebispo Juan de San Clemente for best foreign novel of the year 2004-2005. In 2005, it also became the Globe & Mail Book of the Year, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and one of the Publishers Weekly Top Ten Books of the Year, the only foreign work in the list.

The following novel Un giorno perfetto (A Perfect Day, 2005, Premio Roma) has been turned into the omonimous film by Ferzan Ozpetek.

Mazzucco dedicated to the Italian Renaissance painter Tintoretto her novel La lunga attesa dell’angelo (The Long Wait for the Angel, 2008, 2021, awarded in 2009 with Premio Bagutta, Premio Scanno, Premio Biblioteche di Roma) and the monumental biography and study Jacomo Tintoretto e i suoi figli (Jacomo Tintoretto and His Children, 2009, 2023, awarded with Premio Benedetto Croce, Premio Luigi Russo, Premio Palmi, Premio Comisso). In February 2012, she contributed with an essay about Tintoretto and a series of introductory captions to his paintings to the huge exhibition in Rome at Scuderie del Quirinale.

In 2012 she published Limbo (Premio Elsa Morante, Premio Rhegium Julii, Premio Matteotti, Premio Bottari Lattes Grinzane) and the Christmas tale Il bassotto e la Regina (Plato and the Queen, Premio Frignano Ragazzi), illustrated by Alessandro Sanna, and in 2013 the novel Sei come sei (2014, Premio Molinello), in 2016 Io sono con te. Storia di Brigitte (Book of the Year-Fahrenheit 2016). Her most recent novel is L'architettrice (2019, Premio Capalbio, Premio Alassio "Un autore per l'Europa", Premio Dessì, Premio Corrado Alvaro e Libero Bigiaretti, Premio Io Donna, Premio Stresa, Premio Mastercard, Premio Manzoni, Premio Righetto).

In 2013, she was a weekly contributor to la Repubblica with the art column Il museo del mondo: her contributes have been collected in the volume Il museo del mondo, published in 2014 and winner of the Premio Città delle Rose 2015. In 2022 she published Self-portrait. Il museo del mondo delle donne (2022, Premio Fiori Blu).

Mazzucco won the Viareggio-Tobino Literary Award 2011 as writer of the year, the 2011 Premio Vittorio De Sica for literature, and was awarded the Premio Ignazio Silone 2013 and the Dante d’oro by Bocconi University. In 2016, she became an honorary member of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice and her book Io sono con te. Storia di Brigitte was voted Book of the Year by the public of the popular radio program Fahrenheit (Rai Radio 3) and has won the the Premio Letterario Basilicata for fiction in 2017. In 2020 she won the Premio alla Carriera John Fante. In 2021 she received Premio regione Friuli Venezia Giulia with the long story Fuoco infinito. She's among the authors of the anthology Ferite (2021).

Also in 2021, she collaborated on the exhibition Una rivoluzione silenziosa. Plautilla Bricci painter and architect, curated by Yuri Primarosa (Gallerie Nazionali d'Arte Antica, Palazzo Corsini, Rome. November 4, 2021-April 19, 2022), writing a new biography of the artist (Una certa donna che vive ancora) and the documentary record for the catalog (Officina Libraria, 2021).

She has written for film, theater and radio. The comedy Una pallida felicità. Un anno nella vita di Giovanni Pascoli, written with Luigi Guarnieri (1995) was performed in many Italian cities in the production of the Teatro Stabile di Torino. Winner of the Medaglia d'oro for Italian dramaturgy IDI 1996, it was published in Hystrio, 1995, VIII, n. 4, October/December, pp. 139-151. It was also revived as a staged reading at the Teatro Argentina in Rome (2015) directed by Piero Maccarinelli, with Galatea Ranzi, Valentina Sperlì and Giulio Scarpati. 

Her radio plays include La vita assassina (1997, RAI Radio 2), Requiem per la scrittrice Mila B. (1998, RAI Radio2) and Dulhan la sposa (2001, RAI Radio 3): winner of the international prize Prix Italia 2001, it was produced and broadcast in the national languages in seven European countries, including Germany, Ireland and Slovakia, and published in Sipario, 2001, n. 623, April, pp. 49-58. Under the direction of Valerio Binasco, it was staged at the Teatro Stabile di Torino in 2022. In 2023 it was published by Einaudi.

Her books have been translated all over the world. She has contributed with articles, reportages, and short stories to many major newspapers and magazines such as la Repubblica (to which she still contributes), Il Sole 24 Ore, Corriere della Sera, il manifesto, Il Messaggero, Nuovi Argomenti, and is regularly invited to hold conferences and lectures in major universities in Italy and abroad. She created and written the documentary Tintoretto. Un ribelle a Venezia, a 2019 Sky Arts original production distributed all over the world. She is the President of the Committee Premio Strega and Scientific Advisor for the Treccani Encyclopedia.

Her most recent work is Silenzio. Le sette vite di Diana Karenne (Einaudi, 2024).

In 2023 she was awarded the Matilde Serao Award.
In 2024 she is among the winners of the Rizzi Prize, for Culture category.

• Silenzio. Le sette vite di Diana Karenne
• Dulhan la sposa (Dulhan the bride)
• Self-Portrait. Il museo del mondo delle donne. (Self-Portrait. The Museum of the World of Women)
• Il bacio della medusa (Medusa’s Kiss)
• Fuoco infinito (Infinite fire)
• L’architettrice
• Io sono con te (I’m With You)
• Il museo del mondo (The Museum of the World)
• Sei come sei (You Are How You Are)
• Il bassotto e la regina (Plato and the Queen)
• Limbo
• La lunga attesa dell’angelo (The Long Wait for the Angel)
• Jacomo Tintoretto e i suoi figli (Jacomo Tintoretto and his Daughter Marietta)
• Un giorno perfetto (A Perfect Day)
• Vita
• Lei così amata (She So Loved)