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Luciana Castellina (born 9 August 1929) is an Italian journalist, writer, politician, and feminist.[1][2]
Castellina was born in Rome on 9 August 1929. She graduated in law from Sapienza University of Rome. In 1947, she joined the Italian Communist Party. Castellina started her career in journalism in the 1950s, working for the daily newspaper Paese Sera. She later worked for several other newspapers, including L'Unità, il manifesto, and Liberazione. Her writings focused on issues such as workers' rights, feminism, and communism. In 1974, she was co-founder of the Proletarian Unity Party for Communism. She served four terms in Italy's Chamber of Deputies and twenty years in the European Parliament. As a member of the European Parliament, she served as chair of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and of the Committee on External Economic Relations.[3][4][5]
Castellina was president of Italia cinema, an agency to promote Italian films abroad, from 1998 to 2003.[3] She served as editor of Nuova Generazione, a Communist youth magazine, and of Liberazione, and also played an important role at il manifesto.[5][2] Castellina was named an Officier in the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and a Comendadora (Commander) of the Republic of Argentina.[3] In the 2015 Italian presidential election, Left Ecology Freedom supported Castellina's name as possible successor of Giorgio Napolitano as president of Italy. She was supported for the first three ballots until the party decided to support for the fourth ballot Sergio Mattarella, who was later elected president.[6]
Luciana Castellina was married to Italian Communist Party leader Alfredo Reichlin. They have two children, Lucrezia and Pietro, both of them economists.