Giuseppe Pontiggia's most significant contribution to Italian letters lies in his fashioning a narrative apart from Neorealism and the other currents of the post-World War II period. While close to the circle of avant-garde writers of Gruppo 63, he yet holds a strong belief in literature as a repository of significant values. More than language and ideology, Pontiggia believes that the quest for truth sustains literature. Even in an experimental work such as L'arte della fuga (The Art of Fleeing, 1968), which lacks a conventional plot or account of events, he never allows the pleasure of the text to become an evasion, a ludic exercise, or a self-gratifying experience.

With Il giocatore invisibile (1978; translated as The Invisible Player, 1988) Pontiggia began to emphasize readability and the importance of plotline, seeking a middle road between simplicity and complexity, between clarity and enigma. In all of his novels he shows a tenacious rationality...