Maria Luisa Spaziani (born 1924) is an Italian poetess.

Spaziani has been nominated twice for the Nobel Prize for Literature, once in 1990 and again in 1992.

Spaziani and Eugenio Montale

In the 1950s Spaziani had an affair with the poet Eugenio Montale, and was the inspiration for the character la Volpe ("the Fox") in his poetry. Montale's poem "Da un lago svizzera" is an anacrostic forming Maria Luisa Spaziani. In 1995 Spaziani published her correspondence with Montale, consisting of some eight hundred letters.

Spaziani is president of the Centro internazionale Eugenio Montale, which confers the Premio Montale, a literary prize.

List of Works

  • Le acque di sabato (1954)
  • Il gong (1962)
  • Utilità della memoria (1966)
  • L'occhio del ciclone (1970)
  • Transito con catene (1977)
  • Geometria del disordine (1981, Premio Viareggio)
  • La stella del libero arbitrio (1986)
  • Giovanna d'Arco (1990)
  • Torri di vedata (1992)
  • I fasti dell'ortica (1996)