Luigi Pirandello

Born in Sicily on 28 June 1867, Luigi Pirandello wrote across every form — novels, poetry, hundreds of short stories, some forty plays — often in his native Sicilian. His dramatic work rewired the theatre: instead of neat plots, he gave audiences structures that questioned their own existence, characters aware of being watched, reality as a construct that could crack mid-scene. The method was bold enough to be called ingenious, strange enough to prefigure the Theatre of the Absurd by a generation. In 1934 the Nobel committee gave him the literature prize for reviving dramatic and scenic art. H…