[1][2][3] Oreste Del Buono (often identified both by himself and by others simply as "OdB") was born at Poggio, a small village a couple of kilometers inland from the western coast of the island of Elba.

[5] He went on to enrol at the Milan university faculty of law in 1941 and then, without finishing his course of study, and possibly in response to pressure from his mother,[4] enlisted in the navy in July 1943,[2] just a few days before The Leader was dismissed from office by what would at the time have been seen by many as his own "Fascist Grand Council".

[4] On 8 September 1943 the new Italian government, reacting to evidently irresistible pressure from the advancing Anglo-American forces in the south, proclaimed an armistice.

Shortly after the proclamation of the armistice, Oreste Del Buono was captured by the Germans during the fighting for control of the Island of Brioni[4] He spent a year and a half as a prisoner of war, detained in the remote concentration camp by the Gerlos Pass, located among the high mountains east of Innsbruck.

[8] His portfolio of English translations included works by Raymond Chandler, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, Horace Walpole and Ian Fleming.

Although the book is classified as a novel, much of the telling detail is lifted unapologetically from the author's personal experiences during the eighteen months that he spent as an involuntary guest at a German mountain concentration camp during 1943–45.

[10] But he also brought to the fore and then nurtured works by a large number of younger and otherwise unknown Italian authors such as Achille Campanile, Giovannino Guareschi and Giorgio Scerbanenco, Carletto Manzoni, Tiziano Sclavi, Renato Olivieri, Marcello Marchesi, Giorgio Forattini Emilio Giannelli, Augusto De Angelis, Paolo Villaggio and Giulio Angioni.

Published in 1969, at a time when many intellectuals were inclined to take a dismissive approach to "kids' comics", the work pioneered a more serious evaluation of an important tranche of popular culture.

[15] In 1980/81 he enjoyed a brief career as a pundit and sports commentator, featuring on the news broadcasts fronted by Maurizio Costanzo on the short-lived PIN (non-government owned television channel) launched by the Rizzoli Group.

[16] He also worked on the Turinese newspaper La Stampa, imposing his own approach on the Specchio dei tempi (Mirror of the times) column which he contributed in succession to Giulio De Benedetti.