Michela Murgia

Michela Murgia was born in Cabras, in Sardinia, where she attended the theological studies at the Institute of Religious Sciences of the Diocese of Oristano.

She had a Catholic Education that allowed her to do the activity of religious teaching until 1998, after which she dedicated herself to various working activities, among which that of telephone operator at the Kirby Company branch of Oristano.

An important experience for the talented writer, such that it was the inspiring source of her first novel, “The world must know” (2006): a tragic-comic tale about a month of work at the call center of one of the most known multinational corporation. An inquiry from which came the namesake theatrical play by David Emmer and the movie “All the life ahead” by Paolo Virzì.

The crucial topic of the underpayment work is described in an intense synthesis, but through features of cheerfulness that simplify a situation that is the same for most of dependents who face the work field, sometimes submitting to emotional and psychic pressures.


The professional change of Michela Murgia was marked by the publication of “Accabadora” (2009), through which the author won the Dessì Award and the Campiello Award, and at the same time, she obtained the prestigious Supermondello Award.

The theme of euthanasia, here, is made by the writer, through a key typical of Sardinian tradition, personifying the executor with the protagonist, Bonaria Urrai, who makes the last pathetic gesture. “The last mother”, namely s’Accabadora, accompanies, towards the end, the existence of another person, through a “an almost millennial knowledge about the things concerning life and death”.


Among her works, we can remember: "Present", "The meeting", "Ave Mary", "And Church created woman", "I killed her because I loved her", "False!", "Trip in Sardinia" and "Eleven paths in the Island that you cannot see".

The communicative and direct language typical of this Sardinian writer, allows the immediate involvement by the reader, made almost participating of the work, that tells a path of life, a meeting, a delicate theme, such as that of adoption joined to that of euthanasia. The Michela Murgia’s books always consist in a work that tells something, that inspires.