17 Facts About Luce d'Eramo

Luce d'Eramo was an Italian writer and literary critic.

Luce d'Eramo is best known for her autobiographical novel Deviazione, which recounts her experiences in Germany during World War II.

Luce d'Eramo was the youngest of three daughters, of whom the oldest one died in infancy.

Luce d'Eramo's mother served as a voluntary secretary of the Italian Fascio in Paris assisting Italian immigrant workers.

The change of scene proved a social and cultural shock as Luce d'Eramo tried to adjust to her new life in Italy.

Luce d'Eramo left her family to take on a job as a factory worker in Germany and was sent to a labor camp at the Siemens plant, and later at the IG Farben plant in Frankfurt.

Luce d'Eramo supported the Russian prisoners in solidarity with their plight and participated in a strike organized by the French resistance.

Luce d'Eramo threw away her documents, joined a group of deportees being sent to Germany, and ended up in the Dachau concentration camp.

Luce d'Eramo escaped from the camp during an air raid and began the nomadic life of a clandestine vagrant, taking on the most menial jobs to survive in a Germany plagued by relentless air raids of the Allied forces.

On February 27,1945, in Mainz, Luce d'Eramo was helping rescue the wounded buried under the rubble of a bombed building when a wall crumbled on top of her.

Luce d'Eramo was gravely injured and the damage to her spine caused permanent paralysis to both legs, resulting in a handicap that would impact the rest of her life.

Luce d'Eramo continued to use her married name even after the divorce.

Once back in Italy, Luce d'Eramo resumed her studies, earning both her degrees in literature in 1951 and philosophy in 1954.

Luce d'Eramo spent the rest of her life writing and travelling in Europe, United States, and Japan.

Luce d'Eramo was buried at the Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome where John Keats, P B Shelley, and Antonio Gramsci are buried.

The novel which Luce d'Eramo herself regarded as her favorite was Partiranno.

An extensive bibliography on Luce d'Eramo's writings is included in the 2012 edition of Deviazione, published by Feltrinelli.