Giorgio Bassani

Giorgio Bassani lived from 4 March 1916 to 13 April 2000 and was an Italian novelist, poet, essayist, editor and intellectual. Born in Bologna into a prosperous Jewish family of Ferrara, he studied literature at the University of Bologna under the art historian Roberto Longhi and graduated in 1939 despite the race laws. His first book, Una citta di pianura, appeared in 1940 under the pseudonym Giacomo Marchi. His activity in the anti-fascist resistance led to his arrest in May 1943, and after the war he settled in Rome. His novel Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, won the Viareggio Prize in 1962 and has been adapted for the screen.