Marilena Rossi new head of Italian fiction at Mondadori
As of mid-September 2023, Marilena Rossi will take on the role of Head of Italian Fiction at Mondadori, reporting directly to Francesco Anzelmo, General Manager of the publishing house.
«It is an honour to pick up the baton as head of Italian Fiction. I am grateful to those who preceded me and to Mondadori’s management, especially Francesco Anzelmo, for their trust. Together with our team of brilliant and highly experienced professionals, we will continue to provide readers with as varied an offering as possible. The privilege of working in a large publishing house with a multi-variegated catalogue is the possibility of pursuing a wide-ranging cultural project. We will cultivate the literary dimension, through the work of established writers and the constant search for new voices, and pay great attention to genre and popular fiction, in its various forms. From comedies – so successful in Italian cinema, but still full of potential in novel form – to thrillers, historical novels, family sagas and the great Mondadori tradition of crime fiction. As passionate and insightful readers, we will also try to intercept new trends and discern the as yet unexpressed desires of readers.»
Marilena Rossi was born in Milan in 1977 and has two daughters. After graduating in modern literature from the University of Milan, between 2004 and 2008 she continued her studies in the academic environment and collaborated with various literary journals.
In 2008 she joined Mondadori as a desk editor and editor-in-chief under Antonio Franchini; later she worked with Carlo Carabba and Giovanni Francesio – who preceded her in the role of head of Italian fiction – and became the point of reference for many of the publishing house’s most important and representative authors.
In 2015, Rossi became an acquiring editor and, in addition to working with authors in the Mondadori portfolio, built a successful track record in discovering and acquiring new voices, many of whom are now established authors.
She has been running a writing workshop at the Belleville School in Milan since 2019.
Photo by Claudio Sforza