From a Friulian family, Gianni Granzotto was born before the first World War in Padova on 12 January 1914, but spent his youth in Bologna, where he graduated in the Arts in 1936 with a thesis on Italo Svevo.

Once back in Italy, Gianni was appointed director of the Bologna magazine The Assault (founded in 1920), followed by twenty-five years at the Genoese newspaper The Work.

In 1972, he became President of the Federation of Newspaper Publishers (FIEG), and by 1974 he was based at Indro Montanelli and Perrone Group's Il Giornale, first as managing director and then as chairman.

By the end of his life he became incapacitated by an old disease that would lead to his eventual death in Lazio, Rome in March 1985 at the age of 71 – hepatitis – this he had contracted in Yugoslavia, where he had been sent to follow the rift between Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin.

His autobiography, however, was the most congenial of himself written and appeared in Volumes II of the traveler book published posthumously, with the title Vojussa, mia cara (or Vofussa my dear), with his collected memories of war in Albania.