Ferdinando Camon belongs to the generation of Italians whose early childhood occurred during World War II. His writings are intensely concerned with issues that have tormented and excited his contemporaries: the horrors of living through a war fought on one's own territory and Italy's rapid transition from a predominantly agrarian culture to an industrial society facing such novel phenomena as mass culture, political terrorism, the import of psychoanalysis, and the linguistic and literary issues connected with them. His novels and essays as well as his willingness to explore the most disturbing trends of recent Italian history have made him one of the best-known interpreters of Italian postwar culture.

Camon was born on 14 November 1935 in a small village in the province of Padua, near the town of Montagnana, which is encircled by walls dating from the beginning of the second millennium. The town is also notable as the location...