Ottiero Ottieri embraces two extremes of the narrative spectrum: the naturalistic and the psychoanalytical. He is recognized as the initiator of the literary trend known in Italy as "Literature and Industry." With his second novel, Tempi stretti (Hard Times, 1957), Ottieri pioneered the focus in Italian fiction on the factory and the new postwar world of industry, neocapitalism, labor problems, and social alienation. His third novel, Donnarumma all'assalto (1959; translated as Men at the Gate, 1962), is the most famous work to deal with industrialization in southern Italy. In his subsequent writing, Ottieri's interest shifts to personal relations and is marked by relentless psychological inquiry and self-analysis. He explores existential and clinical alienation as well as the feelings of irreality, anxiety, depression, and distress.

Ottieri was born on 29 March 1924 in Rome, where his family had moved from southern Tuscany after World War I. In 1948 he graduated from the University of Rome...