Born in Capoterra, southern Sardinia, Atzeni lived in Orgosolo[1][2] during his childhood until he moved to Cagliari where, as a journalist, he worked for some of the most important Sardinian newspapers.
In 1986, he left Sardinia and travelled across Europe, but in the last part of his life he settled in Turin where he wrote his most important novels, including Il figlio di Bakunìn (Bakunin's Son), Passavamo sulla terra leggeri and Il quinto passo è l'addio.
In some of his novels (e.g. Il quinto passo è l'addio and Bellas mariposas) he also used techniques akin to the "magic realism" style of many Southern American authors, where fantastic elements appear in the realistic setting.
Sergio Atzeni is considered, with Giulio Angioni and Salvatore Mannuzzu, one of the initiators of the so-called Sardinian Literary Spring, the Sardinian narrative of today in the European arena, which followed the work of individual prominent figures such as Grazia Deledda, Emilio Lussu, Giuseppe Dessì, Gavino Ledda, Salvatore Satta.
Atzeni died by drowning in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of San Pietro Island on 6 September 1995.
The son discovers his father was from a bourgeois family, then became a miner in the 1930s, and a political activist and member of parliament after the war.