I'm Not Scared

Niccolò Ammaniti is one of Italy's brightest literary stars. His fiction combines tense horror with the blackest comedy and displays a knowing intelligence. Ammaniti's allusions to 1970s film and B-movie schlock place him at the vanguard of Italy's so-called giovani cannibali - young cannibals - who draw variously on kung-fu videos, comics and pop music (Bryan "Ferrari" Ferry) to conjure a disaffected modern Italy.

NIDA graduate Dennis Olsen has performed roles in every major theatre company throughout Australia in productions as diverse as The Crucible, Private Lives, Six Characters in Search of an Author, The Three Sisters, Kafka Dances, Oedipus Rex, Hamlet and Cabaret. His many roles include Giacomo Puccini in Puccini Spectacular, Salieri in Amadeus, a national tour of Heroes and Candide. He has starred in productions of HMS Pinafore, Iolanthe, The Mikado and The Gondoliers. His directing credits include HMS Pinafore, The Abduction from the Seraglio and Countess Maritza. In 1987 he was awarded the AM for services to the performing arts.

Jonathan Hunt was born in Portsmouth in 1951. He has taught at the universities of Munich, Cambridge and Turin, and has worked as a literary translator for several years. He currently holds a research post at Turin University and divides his time between Italy and Britain.