Gesualdo Bufalino was born at Comiso, Sicily, in 1920. He studied literature at Catania and Palermo, and was a teacher by profession, turning author only after his retirement in 1976. He started his first novel, The Plague-Sower, in 1950, but it was only in 1981, after taking the discarded manuscript out of the drawer and reworking it, that it was published, it won the Premio Campiello. This and other works, including Blind Argus (a construct of time and memory, artful and full of delight Scotsman) on which the translator, Patrick Creagh, has won the John Florio Prize. With this novel, Night's Lies, the author won Italy's top literary award, the Premio Strega.