Elsa Morante (pronounced [ˈelsa moˈrante, ˈɛl-]; 18 August 1912 – 25 November 1985) was an Italian novelist, poet, translator and children's books author.

Her first book, a collection of short stories called Il Gioco Segreto (The Secret Game), was published in 1941.

During the German occupation of Italy late in World War II, Morante and Moravia, fearful because of their Jewish heritage, fled Rome to repair in Southern Lazio, in a village near Fondi and where there were several poor families of shepherds, called in the past, with an offensive term, "ciociari" in the modern Roman dialect.

Morante decided to briefly return to war-torn Rome at great personal risk to retrieve the manuscript of what would be her first published Menzogna e sortilegio and get winter clothes.

At the end of the war, Morante and Moravia met the American translator William Weaver, who helped them to break into the English-speaking market.

Her next work, Il mondo salvato dai ragazzini (The World Saved by Children), a mix of poetry and songs mostly addressed to her new lover, artist Bill Morrow, was published in 1968.

In 1974 Morante published La storia, a book chronicling the events surrounding Rome during World War II.

It became a national bestseller in Italy, partially due to Morante's insistence that publisher Einaudi would put it out in an economical paperback edition.

Despite its commercial success, the book provoked furious and at times negative reactions from left-wing literary critics, who disliked its anti-ideological tone.

[2] Morante's final novel, Aracoeli (1982), has been perceived as a summary of all the motifs and trends present in her writing, such as the innocence of childhood and the importance of creating fantastic worlds to escape from dreary realities.