Alessandro Baricco, one of Italy’s best loved and well known writers, is the author of essays, novels and plays. He began his career young, presenting television programmes, L’Amore è un dardo on opera, and Pickwick. Del leggere e dello scrivere. For the stage, he has adapted, directed and starred in classics from Homer to Moby Dick, and brought the Palladium and Mantova Lectures to the theatre. President of the Scuola Holden in Turin, which he co-founded in 1994, he teaches topics related to storytelling. His books, translated worldwide, include: Lands of Glass (1991); Ocean Sea (1993); Novecento (1994), which Giuseppe Tornatore adapted for his film The Legend of 1900; Silk (1996), turned into a film by director François Girard; Next (2002); Smith&Wesson (2014); The Young Bride (2015); and Il nuovo Barnum (2016), all published by Feltrinelli.