Born in the South of Italy in a small town close to Naples, as a teenager, Antonio could not get his hands on a copy of WIRED magazine. In essence, a bigger city was calling, and Milan answered. He decided to enrol at the university to study Italian Literature. While studying, he became interested in publishing, through Twitter, he started to follow people who worked for publishing houses.
"A world that seemed so far away suddenly was at my fingertips; I could converse with these people.''
What are some of your earliest memories?
''The first book I became obsessed with was the series of children's horror fiction novels called Goosebumps. I remember reading it and quickly becoming frustrated by it as I could not relate to anything that was happening. My dad often talks about the fact that I was always reading. I don't exactly remember my younger days going down like that, I remember watching a lot of television. After Goosebumps I moved on to Harry Potter and fell in love with the catchiness of the writing. From there on I started to construct my collection of books with a more classic approach. I believe reading makes you a better person. I have a routine that I read first thing in the morning, after lunch and late at night, it keeps me focused and in balance."
Are there specific titles you believe everyone should own?
"A classic, what I mean with is a book where the meaning of life is explained or questioned and pushes you to examine what it is to be a human being? That could be a masterpiece like Tolstoy or Dostoevsky."
For me, it would be Rob Lowe's autobiography
"You don't have to enjoy everyone's style, and it's okay to be contradictory within your taste. Take the contemporary novel 'A Little Life' by Hanya Yanagihara; for example, it has mastered the mundaneness of life so well. It takes the context of time directly out of it. The characters struggle with what to have for dinner equally as hard as to how to rise from trauma.''
When can we expect the Great Italian novel from you?
''Mentally, I'm always working on it. The most important part is to bypass all the clichés and not to write anything mundane. The question I ask myself often is how I can show everyday life concerning economic and political crisis? And how can I show a guy who's struggling ambition and his background? It's just a thought. It's about everyone but more as a critique of our times and how we condition ourselves to believe we are exceptional."
Photography by Daleen Bloemers
