Hornby, Simonetta Agnello
Biography
Simonetta Agnello Hornby was born in Palermo in 1945. She has joint Italian and British citizenship, and since 1972 has lived in London, where she worked as a lawyer specializing in juvenile cases, and for eight years was part-time chair of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal. La Mennulara, her first novel, published by Feltrinelli in 2002, was translated around the world. These have been followed by a series of other novels for the same publisher: La zia marchesa (2004), Boccamurata (2007), Vento scomposto (2009), La monaca (2010), Il veleno dell’oleandro (2013), Il male che si deve raccontare (with Marina Calloni, 2013), Via XX Settembre (2013) and Caffè amaro (2016). She has also published Camera oscura (Skira, 2010), La mia Londra (Giunti, 2014) and some best-selling cookery books with a strong narrative element: Un filo d’olio (Sellerio, 2011), La cucina del buon gusto (with Maria Rosario Lazzati, Feltrinelli, 2012), La pecora di Pasqua (with Chiara Agnello; Slow Food, 2012, and Feltrinelli Zoom Flash, 2016) and Il pranzo di Mosè (Giunti, 2014). On 2 June 2016 the President of the Italian Republic appointed her to the Order of the Star of Italy with the rank of Grand Official. Nessuno può volare is also the title of a documentary film made with her son George Hornby for laeffe.
