Nino Ricci

writer

Nino Ricci was born in Leamington, Ontario, to parents from the Molise region of Italy, and completed university studies in Toronto, Montreal, and Florence, Italy. He now lives in Toronto, where he writes full time. He is a past president of the Canadian Centre of International PEN, a writers' human rights organization that works for freedom of expression. Nino Ricci is a Canadian novelist who lives in Toronto, Ontario. He was born in 1959 in Leamington, Ontario, into a family of Italian immigrants from the province of Isernia, Molise. In 1981 Ricci graduated in English literature, in 1987 he earned a second degree in creative writing and Canadian literature, both from York University. Ricci has travelled in Europe and Africa, where, in Nigeria, he taught English literature and language in a high school for two years. Ricci's first novel *Lives of the Saints* was a great critical and commercial success. It won the Books in Canada First Novel Award, the 1990 Governor General's Award for Fiction and a Betty Trask Award. Ricci served as one of the directors of PEN Canada from 1990-96, and as president during 1995-96. He was the writer-in-residence at the University of Windsor for the 2005-06 academic year.