We are delighted to announce the international conference Grazia Deledda’s Waves: Networks, Memories and Legacies 100 Years After the Nobel Prize, taking place at Murray Edwards College on 25-26 September 2026.
Marking the centenary of Grazia Deledda’s Nobel Prize in Literature, the conference brings together an international community of scholars to foster new research into Deledda’s life and work. Grazia Deledda remains the only Italian woman to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, making this centenary a particularly significant occasion for reassessing her legacy and exploring the resonance of her work across different media and artistic practices.
Alongside the academic programme, the conference will celebrate Deledda’s legacy through a series of special events that bring her work and Sardinian culture into dialogue with contemporary visual art and cinema. On 25 September, illustrator and author Alessandro Sanna will give a live-painting performance inspired by Grazia Deledda’s wonder tales, creating an original visual response to her literary imagination. On 26 September, filmmaker Maria Giménez Cavallo will present a special screening of her film Anime galleggianti (Wandering Souls) (2024), a reimagining of Ovid’s Metamorphoses through Sardinian traditions.
The centenary celebrations will then extend from Cambridge to London. On 27 September 2026, marking Grazia Deledda’s birthday, the Regent Street Cinema will host a special screening of Quasi Grazia (2025) by Peter Marcias, followed by a conversation with the film director. Organised in connection with the conference, the screening of Quasi Grazia is a joint initiative of the Italian Section of the University of Cambridge, the Italian Cultural Institute in London and CinemaItaliaUK.
The conference is supported by the Italian Section of the University of Cambridge, the Cambridge-Intesa Sanpaolo Fund for Italian, the British Academy, the Italian Cultural Institute in London, the Society for Italian Studies, the London-based association Il Circolo, the Interdisciplinary Network for Nineteenth-Century Italian Studies Ottocentismi, the Association for the Study of Modern Italy and the British-Italian Society.
The full programme, registration links and further information are available on the conference website: https://conferencegraziadeleddacambridge2026.wordpress.com/
The academic presentations can also be followed online via Zoom. To receive the Zoom link, please contact conferencedeledda2026@gmail.com.