Bianca Pitzorno was born in Sardinia in 1942. Since 1970 she has published seventy works of fiction and non-fiction, for adults and children. Her books have sold more than two million copies in Italy and been translated into many languages. The Seamstress of Sardinia is the first of her adult works to be translated into English. Pitzorno has also translated into Italian books by J. R. R. Tolkien, Sylvia Plath, Tove Jansson and David Grossman.