Author profile
Domenico Davide Pappalardo was born in Catania in 1976 and lived through the full wave of computerization of the 1980s and 1990s: the rise of home computers, the first modems, BBS culture and the countercultural computer scene that was especially vibrant in Catania at the time, including experiences such as FreakNet Medialab. In parallel, also thanks to movements such as Cyberpunk, he developed a deep love for literature and cinema.
He graduated in 2002 in Foreign Languages and Literatures from the University of Catania, with a thesis on electronic art and the computer demoscene. After graduating, he began writing for cinema: he was a finalist at the Premio Solinas in 2001 and 2002, received a special mention at the B.A. Film Festival in 2004, and won at the Calabria Film Festival in 2008. He made his debut as a screenwriter with the feature film Le cose in te nascoste, released in Italian cinemas at the end of 2008.
In 2012 and 2013, he won the Borsa Sbarigia at the Premio Solinas. As a novelist, his book Tappeto Verde was a finalist in 2012 for the RAI La Giara Prize and was selected in 2017 for the Premio Calvino. Since 2006, he has taught cinema across several faculties and departments at the University of Catania.
A passionate video game player, he is a strong supporter of the artistic and cultural relevance of the medium. His love for retro computing, retrogaming, the history of information technology, gaming and countercultural computing also runs through part of his literary and poetic work.
His writing appears in the collective fiction and poetry collections Versi diversi (Catania, ap, 2006), Raudi (Catania, ap, 2010), A Dark Way of Sicily (Catania, Il glomerulo di sale, 2024), and in the anthology Contemporary Sicilian Poetry (New York, Italica Press, 2023). As an essayist, he published Spettacolo e cura (Rome, Alpes Italia, 2018).
