Pia Pera

{{Short description|Italian novelist, essayist, and translator}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Pia Pera

| image =

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| birth_date = 12 March 1956

| birth_place = Lucca, Italy

| death_date = 26 July 2016 (aged 60)

| death_place = Lucca, Italy

| occupation = Writer}}

Pia Pera (12 March 1956 – 26 July 2016) was an Italian novelist, essayist, and translator.

Pera was born in Lucca, Tuscany. Her father, Giuseppe Pera, was a jurist and Russian translator, known from translating most of Alexander Pushkin's work into Italian. Pera followed her father's footsteps and learned Russian, but from very early on expressed an interested in having a career as a writer. Her first collection of short stories, La bellezza dell'asino ("The Beauty of the Donkey"), was published in 1992.

Pera got international notoriety with her 1995 novel Lo's Diary ({{langx|it|Diario di Lo}}), a retelling of Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita from the point of view of the female title character.{{cite book|last1=Peter Bondanella, Andrea Ciccarelli|title=The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Novel|date=31 July 2003 |publisher=Cambridge University Press, 2003|isbn=1139826107}} In later years she specialized in novels connected to her passion for gardening.{{cite news|last1=Emanuele Trevi|title= Addio alla scrittrice Pia Pera: il suo giardino oltre le parole|url=http://www.corriere.it/cultura/16_luglio_26/morta-scrittrice-pia-pera-3023f336-5360-11e6-ae43-c1c76a863041.shtml|accessdate=28 July 2016|work=Corriere della Sera|date=26 July 2016}}

Pera was also a professor of Russian literature at the University of Trento and a translator of Russian novels and an essayist.{{cite news|last1=Redazione|title=Addio a Pia Pera, scrittrice e giardiniera|url=http://lanuovasardegna.gelocal.it/tempo-libero/2016/07/27/news/addio-a-pia-pera-scrittrice-e-giardiniera-1.13879671|accessdate=28 July 2016|work=La Nuova Sardegna|date=27 July 2016}} Her last work was the semi-autobiographic novel Al giardino ancora non l’ho detto ("I haven't told my garden yet").

Pera died at 60 years old of motor neuron disease.