Elisabetta Maria Dami (born 1 January 1958) is an Italian children's author. She is known for her book series Geronimo Stilton.
Elisabetta Maria Dami | |
|---|---|
 Dami in 2019 | |
| Born | Elisabetta Maria Dami 1 January 1958 (age 66) Milan, Italy |
| Pen name | Geronimo Stilton |
| Occupation | Author |
| Period | 1997–present |
| Genre | Children's literature |
| Notable works | Geronimo Stilton |
| Website | |
| elisabettadami | |
Biography
editDami is the daughter of publisher Piero Dami (who founded Dami Editore in 1972). At the age of 13 she started out in the publishing world as a proofreader for the family business, and at nineteen she wrote her first short stories. As an adventure lover, she got her aircraft pilot and parachutist licenses aged 20. At 23 she traveled around the world on her own and completed a famous survival course at the Outward Bound school in Maine.[1] Some of Dami's other adventures include taking part in a rally in the Sahara desert and crossing Africa from north to south in an off-road vehicle; she raced the 100-km Sahara ultramarathon and ran three New York marathons (in 2002, 2003, and 2017).[2]
The creation of Geronimo Stilton
editIn 1990, Dami discovered that she was unable to have children. Shortly afterward she began volunteering at a children's hospital.[3]
As she cared for the sick children, Dami decided to write adventure stories that featured a mouse called Geronimo Stilton as the protagonist. These stories became a publishing sensation both in Italy and internationally.[4]
For a while I worked as a volunteer in a hospital, and it was there, almost by chance, that I invented Geronimo Stilton … It was at the time when Patch Adams taught the world that children need to laugh to get better. So I started to make up funny stories in which the protagonist was a clumsy mouse called Geronimo Stilton. He would get involved in all sorts of entertaining adventures, full of funny events and twists in the plot, that children found really compelling.[5]
Geronimo Stilton's stories have been translated into 49 languages[6] and have sold more than 180 million copies worldwide.[7]
References
edit- ^ "The biography of Elisabetta Dami". elisabettadamionlus.org. Archived from the original on 2018-09-10. Retrieved 2017-10-13.
- ^ "Elisabetta Dami". IMDb.com.
- ^ "My biography • Elisabetta Dami". Elisabetta Dami. Retrieved 2020-12-10.
- ^ "ELISABETTA DAMI - la Repubblica.it". repubblica.it.
- ^ "The biography of Elisabetta Dami". Archived from the original on 2018-09-10. Retrieved 2017-10-13.
- ^ "Geronimo Stilton addestra draghi. E le prossime storie le scrivete voi". Corriere.it.
- ^ "Il mio topo non teme le emozioni Il suo segreto è la resilienza". iltempodelledonne.corriere.it.
External links
edit
- "Elisabetta Dami. Fòrum IMPULSA 2012" audio-video (4 July 2012) at youtube; vimeo
- Elisabetta Dami [1] (11 December 2010) at la Repubblica
- Elisabetta Dami at Library of Congress, with 7 library catalogue records
- Geronimo Stilton at Library of Congress, with 35 library catalogue records
- Thea Stilton at Library of Congress, with 5 library catalogue records