Alessandro Bonsanti's writing career spanned fifty years: he published his first work in 1928 and his last in 1978. He was most popular during the 1950s and the 1960s. In those decades Bonsanti was considered the most prolific and best representative of the prosa dell'arte, (artistic prose) writers, a literary movement inspired by the neobaroque style of artistic expression, prevalent especially in the seventeenth century, which is marked by extravagant and elaborate forms. Such dynamics are clearly evident in Bonsanti's complex, ingenious, bizarre, and often ambiguous prose.

Alessandro Bonsanti was born on 15 November 1904 in Florence. His family, unable to afford to live in the city, moved to the country, where young Bonsanti spent most of his adolescence. The memories of those years occur frequently in his work; indeed, they are the fulcrum of his regionally based narrative. Bonsanti went back to Florence to attend the university, where he majored in...