A Tuscan retreat where ‘literature is the primary value’

TUSCANY - If the baronessa Beatrice Monti della Corte has found a secret to life, it is stories.

At the Santa Maddalena writer's residency at her rambling estate in rural Tuscany, Monti has hosted some of the foremost storytellers of our time - Zadie Smith, Michael Cunningham, Colm Tóibín, Teju Cole, Sally Rooney, Olga Tokarczuk, Michael Ondaatje, Edmund White and a couple hundred others. Although authors appreciate her hushed writing rooms with olive grove vistas, her company is the principal draw.

"The only things Beatrice won't talk about," Smith said, "are things that are boring."

At 97, Monti is animated and unstoppable. She runs Santa Maddalena as her personal passion project, accepting no applications and choosing writers according to her instincts, in consultation with her network of friends, publishers and other authors. Her taste, developed over a...