Stanislao Nievo is a direct descendant of Ippolito Nievo, the author of Le confessioni di un italiano (1867; translated as The Castle of Fratta, 1958), the most important novel written in Italy between Alessandro Manzoni's I promessi sposi (1840; translated as The Betrothed, 1845) and Giovanni Verga's I Malavoglia (1881; translated as The House by the Medlar Tree, 1890). The figure of his famous great-granduncle has loomed large in Stanislao Nievo's career, for his first novel evolved as a result of his research into the life of the ancestor who had written one of the most important works of the Romantic period. In his subsequent career Nievo has established his own reputation as a significant figure in Italian letters.

Born 30 June 1928 in Milan to Saveria Nasalli Rocca and Antonio Nievo, Stanislao Nievo spent his early life in the northern region of Friuli where his aristocratic family lived in the same Colloredo Castle where Ippolito...