Selby Wynn Schwartz

Selby Wynn Schwartz is the author of three books, including After Sappho, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in Political Fiction, the James Tait Black Prize in Fiction, and the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. In 2025, she received the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy in Rome; she holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley.

At Bogliasco, Selby Wynn will be writing about the 1946 strike of the jasmine-pickers of Milazzo: these women, who worked nights harvesting flowers in northeastern Sicily for a mere 25 lire a kilo, not only won their own rights but also inspired women workers in citrus groves and sardine factories across southern Italy. Re-imagining this little-known episode in labor history, she hopes, might help us to dream future feminist strikes for justice.