live in Paris. He occasionally visited his house in Turin, which he had managed to keep. He continued to write and publish novels as Pitigrilli until 1974. He died in Turin in 1975. Following his death, his Dolicocefala Bionda and L'Esperimento di Pott, two early novels, were re-issued in one edition in 1976 with an introduction by the noted Italian author Umberto Eco. Eco wrote: “Pitigrilli was an enjoyable writer – spicy and rapid – like lightning.” Collaboration with the Fascist regime In 1991 Alexander Stille published Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families under Fascism. Stille documents how Pitigrilli acted as an informant for the Fascist secret police OVRA during the 1930s, until 1939. Stille noted that the Fascist secret police used intelligence from these conversations to arrest and prosecute anti-fascist Jewish friends and relatives of Pitigrilli. Stille used many documents and accounts by members of the clandestine anti-fascist movement Giustizia e Libertà (Justice and Freedom) operating in Turin. An Italian post-war government committee investigating collaborators and OVRA concluded about the writer: "…the last doubt (on Pitigrilli being OVRA informant number 373) could not stand after the unequivocal and categorical testimonies … about encounters and confidential conversations that took place exclusively with Pitigrilli." Works Mammiferi di Lusso (1920) Cocaina (1921) The Man Who Searched for Love (1929) L'esperimento di Pott (1929) Dolicocefala Bionda (1936) Le Amanti. La Decadenza del Paradosso (1938) La Piscina di Siloe (1948) La moglie di Putifarre (1953) Amore a Prezzo Fesso (short stories, 1963) La Donna di 30, 40, 50, 60 Anni (1967) L'Ombelico di Adamo. Peperoni dolci (1970) Sette delitti (1971) Nostra Signora di Miss Tif (1974) English translations The Man Who Searched for Love, translated by Warre B. Wells. New York: R. M. McBride & Company, 1932. Cocaine, New York: Greenberg, 1933. Reissued in 1974, AND/OR Press, San Francisco. Reissue in 2013 by New Vessel Press, release on 15 September 2013. References External links Angiolo Paschetta, Il fenomeno Pitigrilli , Torino: Casa Editrice Sfinge, 1922, text online at Hathi Trust Digital Library, University of California 1893 births 1975 deaths Writers from Turin Italian male writers University of Turin alumni Italian spies Jewish Italian writers