Since he appeared on the literary scene in 1949 with a collection of short stories, La provincia addormentata: Raconti (The Sleepy Province, 1949), Michele Prisco has chosen as his narrative domain the complex and mysterious world of the human conscience. At the same time, he has gained attention for his interest in the mores and values of the middle class in the large towns around Naples. In his uncharitable probing Prisco focuses on bourgeois decorum, which, on close examination, masks compromises, intrigues, and hypocrisy. In some instances evil lurks behind the appearance of respectable conduct and good intentions.

The youngest of eleven children, Prisco was born on 18 January 1920 in Torre Annunziata, a coastal town south of Naples, to Salvatore Prisco, a lawyer, and Annamaria Prisco. In 1936 the sixteen-year-old Prisco wrote in a notebook: "Scrivendo io voglio arrivare al fondo dell'uomo, voglio che gli uomini, leggendomi, imparino a conoscersi e forse...