Contemporary Italian writers

How contemporary do you mean? Italo Calvino's the best Italian writer that springs immediately to mind, but he died in 1985.

Surely there are some alive ones!

sorry I don't read much Italian Literature, but I know of a few names that are particularly appreciated here, even though I don't know how many among them have been translated:

- obviously Umberto Eco (with a new novel out this summer)
- Andrea Camilleri (he has created this "detective series" about a police officer in Sicily, but apart from the genre the guy is a real writer, the prose is beautiful and he also wrote a few historical novels - which are splendid - using Sicilian dialect which I'm sure is very difficult to translate)
- Alessandro Baricco (mellow but fashionable at times)
- Stefano Benni (hilarious satire on Italian ways and politics)
- Margaret Mazzantini (a film was made out of one her novels the title of which would translate DO NOT MOVE)

But I'll be back with more once I've been in a bookshop and have had a proper look around

Just thought of Niccolo Ammaniti, who wrote "I'm not scared". I've heard a lot of recommends for that one. (I think there's a movie as well)

Yes, has anyone seen the movie version? I have it on DVD here at work and I'm not sure whether to take it home to watch or not.

I read Fango (Mud) by Niccolò Ammaniti: pulp + splatter, didn't like it. but I don't know about I'm not scared (neither the film nor the movie)

Leonardo Sciascia (d. 1989) - Sicilian detective fiction. I'd start with A Ciascuno Il Suo (To Each His Own) or Todo Modo (One Way or Another). I found the former hard to get in translation, but Amazon's got the 1992 ed. and claims to dispatch it within 24 hours. The man on the cover appears to have a pornstar moustache.

Sciascia is great, but unfortunately dead...among contemporary authors who are also unfortunately dead I suggest Elsa Morante (been in the library and found English translation of all her novels) History, Arthur's Island...

I'm surprised that no one mentioned the great Paolo Maurensig, easily the best (living, and fairly young besides) writer Italy has got today....

His novels tend to be short, suspenseful, written in a brilliant style and with not-easily-surpassed mastery of the italian language...

I especially recommend the Luneburg Variation and Canone Inverso (the latter was made into a film a couple of years ago...)

Oooh, thank you! He looks great!

By the way, if whoever recommended Daniel Pennac is listening to this thread, THANK YOU SO MUCH, I'[ve been dying for a really funny French writer...

Contemporary Italian writers? I would suggest Wu Ming (former Luther Blissett, but these are fake names for a bunch of young writers working collectively) and Massimo Carlotto (his latest book is great). But I don't know if they have been tranlated into english.

That's OK, I'm trying to learn Italian. Read question is: can I get them in this godforsaken hell-pod of a "city"!