Stefano Benni is considered by many to be the most innovative and talented of the group of young Italian writers including Aldo Busi, Andrea De Carlo, Pier Vittorio Tondelli, and Daniele Del Giudice whose work first came to critical light in the early 1980s. More than any of the others Benni has succeeded in blending together two of the functions that are conventionally attributed to narrative, for in his novels he both denounces the ills of society and experiments with the imaginative creation of new worlds. While funny and lexically inventive, Benni's novels, even when set in outer space, always address contemporary Italian issues. Deeply rooted in the recognizable political and cultural scene of contemporary Italy, they contain in disguised form bitingly satirical portraits of well-known politicians and businessmen.

As even a cursory examination of Benni's novels reveals, he is above all a brilliantly imaginative comic writer. One...