Alessandro Leogrande (May 20, 1977 – November 26, 2017), born in Taranto, lived in Rome. He was deputy editor of the monthly magazine Lo straniero, a columnist for Corriere del Mezzogiorno and was among the hosts of Wikiradio on Radio 3. For the weekly newspaper Pagina 99, he edited the insert Outboard dedicated to long-form journalism. He has written, among others, In the Country of Viceroys. Italy between Peace and War (The Mediterranean Anchor, 2006), Men and Corporals. Viaggio tra i nuovi schiavi nelle campagne del Sud (Mondadori, 2008; new edition Universale economica Feltrinelli 2016; with which he won the Naples Prize – Book of the Year, the City of Omegna Resistance Prize, the Sandro Onofri Prize and the Rome Libraries Prize), Le male vite. Stories of Smuggling and Multinational Corporations (Fandango, 2010), Smoke on the City (Fandango, 2013). He edited the anthologies In the South without a Compass. Twenty Voices for Regaining Orientation (with Goffredo Fofi; The Mediterranean Anchor, 2002), Every Damn Sunday. Eight soccer stories (minimum fax, 2010) and the volume Trois Agoras Marseille. Art du geste dans le Méditerranée by Virgilio Sieni (Maschietto publisher 2013). With Feltrinelli he published The Shipwreck. Death in the Mediterranean (2011; Volponi and Kapuściński prizes), from which the opera Katër i Radës, which premiered at the Venice Music Biennale in 2014, was based, and, in the Zoom digital series, Adriatico (2011). Also for Feltrinelli, he published La frontiera (2015; Pozzale Luigi Russo Prize, Terzani Prize finalist). In 2017 he published one of his short stories in the collection L’agenda ritrovata, Sette racconti per Paolo Borsellino (Feltrinelli, 2017).
From the Rubble. Chronicles on the Southern Front is a collection of writings about Taranto, his hometown, published posthumously by Feltrinelli (May 2018).
In 2022, again for Feltrinelli, Smoke on the City was republished, with a foreword by Nicola Lagioia.
