Massimo Bontempelli (1878-1960) graduated in Philosophy and Letters from the University of Turin. He worked as a journalist, teacher, and musicologist, and served as an artillery officer during the First World War. In 1926 he founded the controversial literary journal 900, whose editorial committee included James Joyce, Max Jacob and Rainer Maria Rilke. One of the most brilliantly inventive writers of the twentieth century, and considered by many to be the father of "magic realism," Bontempelli was the author of over sixty volumes of poetry, drama, fiction, and theoretical writing.