Outsiders are fascinated by the Italians—their style, politics, diet, sex lives, and cars, not to mention their incredibly beautiful country, to which many thousands of vacationers flock year after year. Why are they healthy and slim in spite of their carb-rich food? Why do they dress up for every occasion, even if it's a trip to the market? How can a country that produced Botticelli also produce Berlusconi? Taking a close look at all aspects of life in Il Bel Paese, this book is the essential companion for the curious and the committed Italophile.
Annalisa Coppolaro-Nowell is an Italian journalist and author who writes both in Italian and in English. She has been working as a correspondent for the Italian press in London for 10 years and living there for 15, with her husband and children.
She was born in Lupompesi, near Siena, Tuscany, in 1966. She has always loved writing and, since she learnt how to spell words, at 5, she had a dream of publishing her own books. After a diploma in foreign languages, and while et university in Siena, by pure chance, at 19, she published her first article in the weekly Il Campo. She then started to contribute to the local press in Siena and joined the Professional Guild of Journalist 3 years later. Meanwhile, she got her degree in Italian and French Literature and left for London, after meeting her future husband in Tuscany in 1993.
In London she taught Italian and had her first and second baby, but never stopped writing for the Italian press including Corriere della Sera and Repubblica. She also started to write in English. She published her first book Giochi d'amore e d'infedeltà (Progetto Cultura Roma) in 2005. She and her family spent a year there, so she also promoted her book in Italy. In 2007 came the commission for the book How to Live like an Italian - A User's Guide to la Dolce Vita, through her agency LBLA, where she writes, with verve and charm, about all good things that represent Italy abroad, (but also on the contradictions and most unusual sides of the Italian soul!). From cookery to sex, from design to fashion, from cars to politics, from the Italian traveler to the stereotypes on Italy...The book is now distributed worldwide and was translated into Polish and Hungarian. www.coppolaro.net
