Giovanni Testori is widely known in Italy not only as a novelist and short-story writer but also as a poet, playwright, painter, and art critic. Testori never shied away from controversial social and religious questions; consequently, his writing mirrors the profound changes that have occurred in Italian society since the 1950s. His work is marked by formal experimentation; social consciousness; an intense, almost obsessive interest in sexuality; and an equally intense quest for spirituality.

Testori was born on 12 May 1923 in Novate, a suburb of Milan, to Edoardo and Lina Testori. His family owned a textile mill not far from Novate. He was educated in private Catholic schools in Milan: the Collegio Arcivescovile San Carlo and the Universitià Cattolic, where he studied literature, philosophy, and are history. The title of his thesis, "Forma nella pittura contemporanea" (Form in Contemporary Painting, 1947), foreshadows the interest in technical innovation that would...