Donna Leon
Author of Death at La Fenice
About the Author
Donna Leon was born on September 29, 1942 in Montclair, New Jersey. She taught English literature in England, Switzerland, Iran, China, Italy and Saudi Arabia. She is the author of a Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery series. Friends in High Places, a novel from the series, won the Crime Writers show more Association Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction in 2000. German Television has produced 16 Commissario Brunetti mysteries for broadcast. She was a crime reviewer for the Sunday Times. She has written the libretto for a comic opera and has set up her own opera company, Il Complesso Barocco. Her titles Jewels of Pardise, The Golden Egg, By Its Cover, Falling in Love and The Waters of Eternal Youth made The New York Times Bestseller List. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Photo credit: Mariusz Kubik, Warsaw, Sept. 27, 2005
Series
Works by Donna Leon
Dressed for Death | A Venetian Reckoning | Quietly in Their Sleep | A Noble Radiance (1996) 8 copies
Lasset die Kinder zu mir kommen, Sanft entschlafen,in Sachen Signora Brunetti,Venezianisvche Scherade,venezianisches… (2003) 6 copies
Death at La Fenice and Friends in High Places [video] — Original novel — 3 copies
Una Historia Propia 2 copies
Backstage 1 copy
Sterke meninger 1 copy
Opprr̜t sj ̜ 1 copy
Ulotne pragnienia 1 copy
18 titres 1 copy
Donna Leon : entrevista 1 copy
Death in strange country 1 copy
Associated Works
Brunetti's Venice: Walks with the City's Best-Loved Detective (2008) — Introduction — 138 copies, 3 reviews
Quietly in Their Sleep and Acqua Alta [video] — Original novel — 3 copies
La Maga Abbandonata [sound recording] — Author — 3 copies
Doctored Evidence and Uniform Justice [video] — Original novel — 2 copies
Death in a Strange Country and A Sea of Troubles [video] — Original novel — 2 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1942-09-29
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA (birth)
Switzerland (2020) - Birthplace
- Montclair, New Jersey, USA
- Places of residence
- Venice, Italy
Val Müstair, Graubünden, Switzerland
Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland - Occupations
- professor (Literature)
novelist - Agent
- Diogenes Verlag, Zürich
- Short biography
- Donna Leon has lived in Venice for about 30 years. She was a lecturer in English Literature for the University of Maryland University College-Europe in Italy, and then a professor at the American military base of Vicenza. She stopped teaching to concentrate on writing and other cultural activities, especially Baroque music.
Members
Discussions
La Serenissima & Dordogne Mystery Read Along in 75 Books Challenge for 2021 (January 2022)
La Serenissima & Dordogne Mystery Read Along in 75 Books Challenge for 2020 (January 2021)
Reviews
A Refiner’s Fire: A Commissario Guido Brunetti… by Donna Leon
This ranks, for me, in the top 10 of the series. Ending is spectacular and ties the story neatly. It doesn't portray legal justice but it provides satisfactory moral justice.
Donna Leon brings back a character from her first book. The opera singer is now singing Tosca but fears a stalker. Brunetti and his colleagues work together to investigate and we get a backstage view of opera at its finest.
Atmospheric. I would come across that word in reviews and wonder exactly what it meant, now I associate it with book travels in exotic places. This book made me feel like I'd had the chance to visit Venice and meet it's local people. The writing is of high caliber and the characters have a depth and a breadth to them. It's a book to take your time with and savor. The series in general is exceptional. Highly recommend it.
Through a series of essays, Donna Leon tells the story of her life. She shares experiences about her early life and about her experiences teaching English in the Middle East and also in China. Her Middle East adventures included being in Iran during the revolution years of 1978-1979. She later was in Saudi Arabia. She details the game "Saudi-opoly" that she and other teachers created and played but kept a closely guarded secret so they wouldn't land in prison. Eventually, of course, she made her way to join the ex-pat community in Italy, especially her beloved Venice. We see her fascination with bees which led to the plot of one Brunetti work. Her love of opera which appears in a couple of novels is the subject of an essay, and in it we see how her love for this musical genre was birthed. She also describers her love of Handel's music. Her dislike of the cruise ships coming into Venice is the theme of one essay and frequently arises in comments in her novels. Of course, her intense dislike of that led her to move to Switzerland. My library only had the audio version of the book, and although I knew it wasn't Donna Leon reading the book, the narrator's voice seemed to match what you might expect if the author herself had been reading it.… (more)
Lists
Books Read in 2021 (11)
Books Read in 2020 (11)
Favorite Series (1)
Europe (1)
Donna Leon (23)
Spirit of Place (2)
Opera in fiction (4)
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 80
- Also by
- 20
- Members
- 42,111
- Popularity
- #410
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 1,513
- ISBNs
- 1,795
- Languages
- 26
- Favorited
- 95
