in 1956 with the publication of the Premio Strega-winning book of short stories, Cinque storie ferraresi (the five stories are Lida Mantovani, La passeggiata prima di cena, Una lapide in via Mazzini, Gli ultimi anni di Clelia Trotti, and Una notte del '43). As an editorial director of Feltrinelli Bassani was responsible for the posthumous publication in 1958 of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's Il Gattopardo, a novel which had been rejected by Elio Vittorini at Mondadori, and Einaudi. It became one of the great successes of post-war Italian literature. Bassani's enthusiastic editing of the text, following instructions from (daughter of Benedetto) who had offered him the manuscript, later became controversial, however; recent editions have been published which follow the manuscript more closely. Also in 1958 Bassani's novel Gli occhiali d'oro (made into a film in 1987) was published, an examination, in part, of the marginalisation of Jews and homosexuals. Together with stories from Cinque storie ferraresi (reworked and under the new title Dentro le mura (1973) it was to form part of a series of works known collectively as Il romanzo di Ferrara, which explored the city, with its Christian and Jewish elements, its perspectives and its landscapes. The series includes: Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini (The Garden of the Finzi-Continis) (1962, Premio Viareggio prizewinner); Dietro la porta (1964); L'airone (1968) and L'odore del fieno (1972). These works realistically document the Italian Jewish community under Fascism in a style that manifests the difficulties of searching for truth in the meanderings of memory and moral conscience. In 1960 one of his short stories (Una notte del '43, from Cinque storie ferraresi) was adapted as the film Long Night in 1943. A stage adaptation of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by opera composer Ricky Ian Gordon is set to premiere in January 2022. It is a co-production of National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene and the New York City Opera. From 1965 to 1980, Giorgio Bassani was the president of the organization Italia Nostra. Bassani died in 2000 and was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ferrara. He was survived by his estranged wife Valeria and their two children Paola (born 1945-09-01) and Enrico (born 1949-06-29). He had been with his companion Portia Prebys since shortly after they met in 1977. Bassani received the , the Strega, the Campiello, the Viareggio and the Nelly Sachs prizes. He collaborated on several screen plays. Publications Within the