Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Giuseppe Tomasi, 11th Prince of Lampedusa (December 23 1896 – July 23 1957), was a Sicilian writer best known for his sole novel Il Gattopardo, first published posthumously in 1958 and translated as The Leopard; the work is set in Sicily during the Risorgimento. A taciturn and solitary individual, he spent much of his time reading and meditating and described himself as “a boy who liked solitude, who preferred the company of things to that of people.”