Emilio Salgari

Born in Verona on August 21, 1862, Emilio Salgari became one of Italy's best-known adventure writers. He is especially remembered for creating Sandokan and for writing vivid novels set in places such as Malaysia, the Caribbean, and other far-flung worlds that fired readers' imaginations.

Although his fiction feels full of firsthand travel and seafaring experience, Salgari built many of his exotic settings through reading, research, and imagination. His work was remarkably prolific, and his influence on Italian popular literature lasted long after his death in Turin on April 25, 1911.

Readers often return to Salgari for his momentum: bold heroes, dangerous voyages, secret identities, revenge, friendship, and cliffhanger adventure. Even now, his stories offer a window into the grand, dramatic style of classic popular fiction.