Niccolò Ammaniti was born in Rome on 25 September 1966. He studied Biological Sciences at university, and though he did not complete his degree,[1] his first novel, Branchie (published by Ediesse in 1994, and then by Einaudi in 1997),[3] drew from his unfinished dissertation.[4][1] In 1999, Branchie was adapted into a movie with the same title.[1] In 1995, Ammaniti and his father Massimo published the essay Nel nome del figlio.[3] In 1996, he appeared with his sister in the low-budget movie Growing Artichokes in Mimongo.[1]
A short novel written with Luisa Brancaccio for the anthology Gioventù Cannibale edited by Daniele Brolli came out in 1996,[1] as did a collection of short stories, Fango.[5]Fango was shortlisted as a finalist work at the 1997 Premio Nazionale di Narrativa Bergamo.[6] In 1999, Ammaniti published the novel Steal You Away (Ti prendo e ti porto via),[1][3] followed by the 2001 I'm Not Scared (Io non ho paura), which won the 2001 Viareggio Prize and was adapted into a film directed by Gabriele Salvatores in 2003.[1][3]
In 2015, he published the novel Anna,[12] which six years later was adapted into a TV show aired on Sky Italia and directed by Ammaniti himself.[13] His directorial debut came in 2017 with the TV series The Miracle, released one year later, a project he both created and co-directed alongside Francesco Munzi and Lucio Pellegrini.[14] In 2023, eight years since his last novel, he published La vita intima, winning the Viareggio Prize again, 22 years after his initial recognition with I'm Not Scared.[15]
Works
Novels
Ammaniti, Niccolò (1994). Branchie (in Italian). Rome: Ediesse. ISBN88-230-0135-8.
Ammaniti, Niccolò (1996). Fango (in Italian). Milan: Mondadori. ISBN88-04-40667-4.
Ammaniti, Niccolò (1999). Ti prendo e ti porto via [Steal You Away] (in Italian). Milan: Mondadori. ISBN88-04-46824-6.
Ammaniti, Massimo; Ammaniti, Niccolò (1995). Nel nome del figlio. L'adolescenza raccontata da un padre e da un figlio (in Italian). Milan: Mondadori. ISBN88-04-39339-4.
Radio dramas
Ammaniti, Niccolò (1997). Anche il sole fa schifo (Radio broadcast) (in Italian). Rai-Eri. ISBN88-397-0987-8.
Short stories in anthologies
Ammaniti, Niccolò (1993). "La figlia di Siva". La giungla sotto l'asfalto (in Italian). Ediesse.[9]
Ammaniti, Niccolò; Brancaccio, Luisa (1996). "Seratina". In Brolli, Daniele (ed.). Gioventù cannibale (in Italian). Turin: Einaudi. ISBN88-06-14268-2.
Ammaniti, Niccolò (1997). "Alba tragica". In Lippi, Giuseppe; Evangelisti, Valerio (eds.). Tutti i denti del mostro sono perfetti (in Italian). Milan: Mondadori. ISBN88-04-43806-1.
Ammaniti, Niccolò; D'Alessandro, Jaime (1998). "Enchanted Music & Light Records". Il fagiano Jonathan Livingston. Manifesto contro la new age (in Italian). Rome: Minimum Fax. ISBN88-86568-53-3.
Ammaniti, Niccolò (2000). "L'amico di Jeffrey Dahmer è l'amico mio". In Brolli, Daniele (ed.). Italia odia (in Italian). Milan: Mondadori. ISBN88-06-14268-2.
Ammaniti, Niccolò (2005). "Sei il mio tesoro". In De Cataldo, Giancarlo (ed.). Crimini (in Italian). Turin: Einaudi. ISBN88-06-17576-9.
TV series
Ammaniti, Niccolò (Creator); Ammaniti, Niccolò (Director); Munzi, Francesco (Director); Pellegrini, Lucio (Director) (2018). Il miracolo [The Miracle] (Television production) (in Italian).[16]
Ammaniti, Niccolò (Creator and Director) (2021). Anna (Television production) (in Italian).