Dino Buzzati (Belluno, 1906-1972) was the author of novels, short stories and plays, set designer and painter. Although his fame was relatively late, today he remains rediscovered and is, for many, one of the great European writers of the twentieth century. He received the influences of the surrealists and Kafka and has been compared to Italo Calvino, with whom he shares a taste for allegorical fantasy. Albert Camus was a reader and translator of Buzzati.