Syrian Sgavicchia

She received her education at the University of Rome "La Sapienza", where she obtained a PhD in Italian Studies and a postdoctoral degree in the field of Literary History and Italian Philology under the supervision of Walter Pedullà. At the same university, she taught Contemporary Italian Literature and History of Publishing for several years on a contract basis. In 2006, she became a Researcher at the University for Foreigners of Perugia, and since 2015 she has been an Associate Professor of Contemporary Italian Literature.
Among the twentieth-century literary authors on whom she has written several articles, she prefers those involved in expressive and linguistic experimentation: Vittorio Imbriani, Carlo Emilio Gadda (with Mondadori Education, in 2013 she published an annotated anthology of Gadda’s texts), Stefano D'Arrigo, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Amelia Rosselli, Elio Pagliarani, Alfredo Giuliani, Paolo Volponi, Albino Pierro, Jolanda Insana, and others. Together with A. Cedola, she curated the publication of the first draft of Horcynus Orca (I fatti della fera, Rizzoli, 2000) by D’Arrigo, to whom she also dedicated a monograph, Il folle volo. Lettura di Horcynus Orca, published in the "Giacomo Debenedetti" series of the Department of Italian Studies and Performing Arts at "La Sapienza" (Rome, 2005, translated in France by Editions de Grenelle, Paris, 2025). In 2024, she edited the unpublished Compratore di anime by Stefano D’Arrigo for Rizzoli. In 2025, she curated the collection of previously unpublished documents and wrote the afterword for the new edition of Horcynus Orca published in the BUR series. Among her research interests are the historical-geographic and spatial approach to the study of literary texts, as well as theoretical and methodological gender perspectives in research and teaching. She has written about Anna Banti, Anna Maria Ortese, Alice Ceresa, Fabrizia Ramondino, Goliarda Sapienza (Il romanzo di lei. Narratrici dal secondo novecento a oggi, Carocci 2016) and has published The Alibi of Characters and Parody in the Writing of Elsa Morante, Mimesis, 2025.
Deputy Editor of the journal "L'Illuminista" published by the University "La Sapienza", she is also a member of the jury for the Elio Pagliarani Poetry Prize.