Salvatore Niffoi

Orani, a small center of Barbagia, is the place of birth of one of the most operative and greatest spokespeople of the New Sardinian Literature, Salvatore Niffoi. 

Earned the Bachelor’s degree in Literature in 1976, in Rome, thanks to a thesis about the poetry in Sardinian language, he began the teaching of Italian language in the Middle Schools, that he finished in 2006, the year when his novel, The barefoot widow, won the Campiello Award.


A book with an intense emotional impact that tells a tragedy, a revenge by an old woman who took shelter in Argentina for escaping from her destiny, Mintonia. Indeed, the narrative expedient, used by Niffoi, consists in a narration, on the past, of the previous vicissitudes, through a letter written by the protagonist to her granddaughter. It is a story of revenge, considered as justice, on the archaic background of the Barbagia of the Twenty Century, when a hurt man must employ his right, and duty as well, of avenging himself.


His bibliography is full of great works: "Collodoro", "The trip of deceits", "Come back to Barule", "Pantumas", "The fifth season is Hell ". Actually, in the Niffoi’s novels, the hidden protagonist is Sardinia, a “loved and hated” land, but with a unique beauty from which is difficult to leave.


The own language of the writer becomes the joined use between Italian language and that Sardinian. A language, this one, unique about meaning assignment to names or things of the tradition of Island.


For designating a Sardinian historic situation, or also merely, material and cultural elements of Sardinia, according to the author, it is impossible not to use the original language. In other words, the Sardinian linguistics needs the permanence during the time, because, only through the original language it is possible to describe specific landscapes, in a so careful way as does the writer; or the various characters joined to the centuries-old tradition of the Island.


The man’s mind skill of communication through a language is, in the Niffoi’s works, like in his oral speech, maximized for the correct use of the Sardinian language.