Bianca Pitzorno ( born 12 August 1942) is an Italian writer best known for her books for children and young adults. She is considered one of Italy's most important authors in that field. She was born in Sassari. She studied archaeology and classical literature and then began a career producing programs for television. She began writing books for girls when she was 28. She also writes plays, screenplays and lyrics for songs. Pitzorno lives and works in Milan. Her books have been translated into many languages including French, German, Spanish, Greek, Polish, Hungarian, Korean and Japanese. Her children's stories blend contemporary reality with elements of magic. During the 1970s, she was head of children's programming for RAI television. Later, she worked on the children's television series L'albero azzurro ("The blue tree"). She has translated into Italian works by authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien, Sylvia Plath, David Grossman, Tove Jansson and Soledad Cruz Guerra. Description above from the Wikipedia article Bianca Pitzorno, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.