Dino Buzzati (1906–1972) studied law at the University of Milan and, at the age of twenty-two, went to work for the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, where he remained for the rest of his life. He served in World War II as a journalist connected to the Italian navy and on his return published the book for which he is most famous, The Stronghold (NYRB Classics). A gifted artist as well as writer, Buzzati was the author of five novels and numerous short stories, as well as a popular children’s book, The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily.
Lawrence Venuti, professor emeritus of English at Temple University, is a translator from Italian, French, and Catalan, as well as a translation theorist and historian. He is, most recently, the author of Contra Instrumentalism: A Translation Polemic, the editor of The Translation Studies Reader, and the translator of J. V. Foix’s Daybook 1918: Early Fragments, which won the Global Humanities Translation Prize at Northwestern University. He translated Buzzati’s The Stronghold for NYRB Classics.
