Ambivalences

Chiara Montenero, born Rome 1956, achieved her bachelor’s degree in Modern Foreign Languages and Literature at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’ with a thesis on Arnold Wesker, entitled Arnold Wesker, la trilogia e il centro 42 (Arnold Wesker, The Trilogy and Centre 42). As a journalist she has written for newspapers including Cahiers d’Art, Il Giornale, La Stampa, Mercedes Magazine and Investire,and currently contributes to the Art, Culture and Entertainment section of the daily newspaper Il Tempo. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Angeli inascensore (Marsilio Editori, 1996) and Fragilità indistruttibili (Klimerik, 2009). Her screenplay adaptation of her short story, Noiseless Hotel, appeared on the Sky Culture channel in July 2010. Arnold Wesker F.R.S.L was knighted in 2006 for ‘services to drama’. He has written over forty-three plays, two opera libretti, various mechanical adaptations; four volumes of short stories, a children’s book, and a novel; two volumes of essays, an autobiography, a diary,and a book on journalism; and recently his first volume of poetry. His plays have been produced in cities from Rio de Janeiro to Tokyo, from Paris to Moscow, from Montreal to Zurich, and The Kitchen – his most performed play has been performed yearly somewhere or other around the world for the last fifty years, and recently was revived by The National Theatre in 2011. Arnold Wesker was the recently featured in the Guardian ahead of revivals of his plays Chicken Soup With Barley (The Royal Court) and The Kitchen (The National Theatre): Guardian interview | Arnold Wesker