Grazia Maria Cosima Damiana Deledda (b. Nuoro, Italy, 1871 – d. 1936, Rome, Italy) was an Italian writer. She received only a few years of formal education, which ended when she was eleven; her schooling was then self-imposed and principally carried out through extensive reading of Italian, Russian, French, and English literature of the period. Through contact with more educated peope, Deledda began publishing stories and novels at a very young age in local papers, despite the shocked reaction of the society of Nuoro and the opposition of her family. In January 1900, Deledda left Sardinia and moved to Rome, where she lived the rest of her life. She received the 1926 Nobel Prize for Literature.
