Chiara Carminati: Author – Italy

The language of poetry is characterized by the attention and motivation of the signifier: sounds, rhythm, repetitions are endowed with expressive intentions as well as the meaning of the words.

C. Carminati

chiara carminati was born in Udine in 1971. After she graduated from the University of Trieste where she majored in Italian literature, Carminati specialized in linguistics and text analysis at the University of Aix-en-Provence, France. She has since her debut in 1999 written nearly thirty children’s books, as well as two essays on poetry.

A large portion of Carminati’s work is dedicated to encouraging children to read. In her work to promote reading, she has involved several schools, universities, and libraries. She uses poetry as a tool for developing and using language in workshops together with both children and teachers. She displays the diversity of language through collaborations with other art forms, and she believes that reading aloud is necessary when you aim to engage young children and showcase the enchantment of reading. Besides writing children’s literature and poetry, Carminati has also created several plays for children in collaboration with actors, illustrators, and musicians. Mixing different art forms to create a world where children’s minds are engaged on several creative levels, Carminati showcases the many ways language can be used and mixed to be transformed into something novel. Notably, Carminati has collaborated with the Linea Armonica ensemble; together with them, she has produced plays based on her most popular books. She also has a long established artistic partnership with illustrator Pia Valentinis, who has illustrated most of Chiara Carminati’s work.

Carminati’s written work speaks on a personal level. Both engaging and refined, her language is characterized by amusing rhymes and clever poetic games. Carminati’s original and evocative approach to poetry has not been developed to turn children into poets but to help them to discover the wonder of it and to read, write, and memorize poetry, to happily experiment the expressive potentialities of language.

For her work as a writer of children’s literature, Chiara Carminati in 2009 won the Citti di Bella prize for the book Diario in corsa and then, for the same book, won the Terre del Magnifio award in 2010. For her passion and her method of mixing different art forms, as well as her theoretical research, Carminati was in 2012 awarded the Italian award Premio Andersen—Il mondo dell’infanzia as best author of the year. Her work has also been translated into French, Korean, Chinese, and Greek.