[3] The author's parents, both extremely devout Catholics, discouraged his general interest in the arts[4] and censored most television programmes but Pirotta cites as visual influences on his writing the works of film animator Ray Harryhausen and Alexander Korda.

[citation needed] Pirotta emigrated to the UK in 1981 where his first job was directing three short plays for Moonshine Community Arts Workshop in London, an offshoot of Brian Way's pioneering Theatre Centre.

His Pirates and Treasure, published in the UK, the US, Russia and Sweden in 1995 is widely considered to be the first children's book about sea-robbers with a multi-cultural viewpoint.

It shared the honour with Eric A. Kimmel's Joha Makes a Wish: A Middle Eastern Tale and Cloud Tea Monkeys by Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham.

[7] In November 2016, The Bookseller announced that Saviour Pirotta and his then agents Pollinger Ltd[8] had signed a contract with Bloomsbury Publishing for a series of middle grade adventure stories set in Ancient Greece.

Pirotta's books have been translated and published by major commercial publishers in various countries, including the United States, Australia, Canada, Italy, France, Spain, Slovakia, Holland, Portugal, Germany, Rumania, Belgium, Sweden, Brazil, Thailand, Greece, Estonia, Poland, Russia, Lebanon, Japan, South Africa, Indonesia and South Korea.

In 2020, Pirotta's literary agents signed a translation deal with Midsea Books in Malta to produce his Stone Age Wolfsong series, which is partly set on the island.

In July 2019, the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, announced that it is staging the world premiere of Pirotta's first professional play for children, Granny's Exploding Toilet, in the autumn.