Antonio Moresco was born in Mantua and lives in Milan. Considered one of the founders of modern Italian literature, The Beginnings is his second book to be published by Deep Vellum, after Clandestinity, a collection of short stories. He has gone on to publish several more books, among them the short novel La cipolla (The Onion), the autobiographical Lettere a nessuno (Letters to No One), and Distant Light, which was published by Archipelago in 2013.