Ermanno Cavazzoni was born in Reggio Emilia in 1947. He graduated in Philosophy from the University of Bologna in 1972 and obtained a scholarship at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (with Roland Barthes) for studies in the history of rhetoric. He lives in Bologna and teaches at the university. He has studied Italian Renaissance chivalric literature and edited editions of the works of Ludovico Ariosto and Luigi Pulci. His omnivorous culture and pleasure in the comic shine through in novels and short stories that are among the most original in contemporary Italian literature, including Il poema dei lunatici (1987), which led to his collaboration with Federico Fellini on the screenplay for the film La voce della luna. He has also written stories included in the anthology Narratori delle riserve, edited by Gianni Celati, and in the collection Vite brevi di idioti, along with literary jokes and playful, unfaithful translations. With Gli scrittori inutili, he ironically addressed the theme of writing and the profession of the writer, while Storia naturale dei giganti is a fake academic treatise on a non-existent world. His titles from recent years are: Esame di mezzanotte (2022); Il gran bugiardo (2023); Manualetto per la prossima vita (2024); Il pensatore solitario (2025) and Storia di un'amicizia (2026), the latter a finalist for the Premio Strega. Co-founder of the literary series "Compagnia Extra" published by Quodlibet, he was the director of the magazine Il semplice and co-director, with Gianni Celati and Walter Pedullà, of the bimonthly publication Il Caffè illustrato. He is a member of the OpLePo (Opificio di Letteratura Potenziale).

(photo: © Leonardo Cendamo)