I was born in Milan, Italy, where I grew up. My father was an architect, my mother a translator. My father’s father was from Sicily, my father’s mother from Chile. My mother’s family was from the Italian Northwest. I started writing when I was in high school, but things got more serious after my mother gave me a portable red Lettera 22 typewriter for my 18th birthday. With it I wrote a lot of impressions, sketches, short stories, letters, two whole unpublished novels, and finally my first two published ones. I got a degree in Modern History ( I’m still very interested in history, and in the numberless stories in contains). I’ve travelled around the world a bit, spending long stretches of time in the USA, Australia, South America, and several European cities. When I finished writing my third novel, Treno di panna (Creamtrain), I felt I had at last found my own voice, so I sent it to a few publishers, and to Italo Calvino. He liked it, and helped me publish it, writing a wonderful introduction for it. The following year I met Federico Fellini, and worked as assistant-director on his new movie, E la nave va (And the Ship Sails On). Towards the end of shooting, I directed a short movie on the director and his actors, Le facce di Fellini (Fellini’s Faces). I also worked with Michelangelo Antonioni, at a screenplay for a film that was never made. Years later, I directed a feature film loosely based on my first novel, Treno di panna. Among my other non-literary endeavours are the ballets Time Out and Salgari with musician Ludovico Einaudi and dancer Daniel Ezralov, and the CDs Alcuni nomi with Bengali tabla player Arup Kanti Das, and Dentro Giro di Vento. My novels are: Treno di panna (Creamtrain), Uccelli da gabbia e da voliera (Cage and Aviary Birds), Macno, Yucatan, Due di due (Two of two), Tecniche di seduzione (Techniques of Seduction), Arcodamore (Lovebow), Uto, Nel momento (Here and Now), Pura vita (Pure Life), I veri nomi (The Real Names), Giro di Vento (Windshift), Mare delle verità (Sea of Truth) and Durante. They have been translated into 21 languages. I take part to the “Writers for the forests” campaign launched by Greenpeace, and my books are printed on recycled or FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)certified paper. For the time being my base is in the hills of central Italy.