Elisabetta Dami

Elisabetta Dami
Dami with a few Geronimo Stilton books
Born Elisabetta Maria Dami
Milan, Italy
Pen name Geronimo Stilton
Occupation
  • Writer
Period 2000–present
Genre Children's literature
Notable works Geronimo Stilton
Website
www.elisabettadami.com

Elisabetta Dami (born 1958) is an Italian children’s books author who is most famous as the creator of the character Geronimo Stilton.

Biography

She is the daughter of publisher Piero Dami (who founded Dami Editore in 1972). At the age of thirteen she started out in the publishing world as a proofreader for the family business and at nineteen she wrote her first short stories. As an adventure lover, she got her aircraft pilot and parachutist licences aged 20, and at 24 she travelled around the world on her own and completed a famous survival course at the Outward Bound School in Maine, in the United States.[1] Some of Elisabetta’s other adventures include taking part in a rally in the Sahara desert and crossing Africa from north to south in an off-road vehicle; she raced the 100-km Sahara ultramarathon and ran two New York marathons (in 2002 and 2003). She was also adopted by two Native American tribes.[1]

The creation of Geronimo Stilton

Her experience as a volunteer with sick children gave her the idea of writing adventure stories with a mouse called Geronimo Stilton as the protagonist. These stories went on to become a publishing sensation in Italy and internationally.[2]

For a while I worked as a volunteer in a hospital, and it was there, almost by chance, that I invented Geronimo Stilton … It was at the time when Patch Adams taught the world that children need to laugh to get better. So I started to make up funny stories in which the protagonist was a clumsy mouse called Geronimo Stilton. He would get involved in all sorts of entertaining adventures, full of funny events and twists in the plot, that children found really compelling.[3]

Since then Geronimo Stilton’s stories have been translated into 48 languages[4] and have sold more than 130 million copies all over the world,[5] with more than 32 million sold in Italy alone.[4]

Charity work

In 2016 she founded Elisabetta Dami Onlus, an Italian non-profit association, to help children and protect the environment. Elisabetta also supports other non-profit organisations and associations with donations and creative projects to raise awareness about their activities and the issues they are involved in.[6]

References

  1. 1 2 "The biography of Elisabetta Dami". elisabettadamionlus.org.
  2. ↑ "ELISABETTA DAMI - la Repubblica.it". repubblica.it.
  3. ↑ "The biography of Elisabetta Dami". www.elisabettadamionlus.org.
  4. 1 2 "Geronimo Stilton addestra draghi. E le prossime storie le scrivete voi". Corriere.it.
  5. ↑ ""Il mio topo non teme le emozioni Il suo segreto è la resilienza"". iltempodelledonne.corriere.it.
  6. ↑ "Who we are and what do we do". elisabettadamionlus.org.
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