Marina Colasanti

Colasanti was born to Italian parents in Asmara, an old Italian colony in Eritrea, and lived in Tripoli, Libya during her infancy. Her family moved to Italy at the onset of World War II, where she lived for 11 years. Her family moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1948 due to the difficult conditions in Europe after World War II. Colasanti became interested in stories from a young age. At age six, her parents gifted her a set of abridged classics. She kept a diary from the age of nine. Colasanti began painting as a teenager, and entered the National School of Fine Arts in 1952, where she specialized in etching.

Colasanti first achieved recognition as a journalist and columnist for Jornal do Brasil, where she began working at age 22. Her first job at the paper was in the arts section, where she was an editor and illustrator. After the editor in charge of the children's section was detained under Brazil's military dictatorship, Colasanti was asked to step in. She left the paper in 1973. In 1975, she assisted in founding Nova, a woman's magazine. As an editor there, she published pieces on feminism and gender issues.

Colasanti published more than 70 books, including works of poetry, collections of short stories and children's literature. Many of her original works focused on travel and women and women's issues. She also worked as a translator of Italian literature. She published her first book, Eu Sozinha, in 1968. Colasanti published an original short story in Jornal do Brasil, where she worked as an editor, which sparked her interest in writing and rewriting fairy tales. Many of her short stories were originally published in the Jornal, and later compiled and published as short story collections. She published her first children's book, Uma idéia toda azul (A True Blue Idea), in 1978. The book, a collection of original fairy tales which also featured her own illustrations, saw great success, and was also published in France, Spain, Latin America, and the United States. She wrote her first book of poetry in 1993. Colasanti won the Prêmio Jabuti ten times.

Colasanti was a feminist, publishing four non-fiction books on the subject, including Mulher daqui pra frente in 1981. In 1985, she was nominated to the first National Council for Women's Rights.

Colasanti married the writer Affonso Romano de Sant'Anna in 1971; the couple had two daughters. Colasanti died in Rio de Janeiro at the age of 87 on 28 January 2025.