Maria Chessa Lai
Maria Chessa Lai (born 1922 in Monti, Italy, died 2012 in Alghero, Italy) was a poet writing in the Catalan Algherese dialect. She was three times winner of the Premio Ozieri awarded annually for the best new poetry written in a Sardinian minority language. As a bilingual poet she published her poems simultaneously in Algherese and Italian. The majority of her work was collected together and published in the volume "La Mia Mar" in 2005. Sixty nine of her poems translated into english were published in 2021, in a bilingual Catalan/English edition, under the title: "Collected  Poems/ Recull de poesies de l'Alguer"—including this extract from the poem called "Marçanella Helichrysum Golden Sun" ... Within its flowers the reflection of clear light. And when in the quiet of those hours the flower that bloomed then desists upon the path at the rim of the crumbling abyss it yet persists intenser in strength within its aromatic existence. Maria was the mother of the journalist, academic, and author Pasquale Chessa.