Roberto Calasso was born in Florence in 1941.
In the early 1980s, Calasso began a multi-volume work-in-progress that so far includes The Ruin of Kasch, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, Ka, and K. He is also the author of L’impuro folle and essay collections The Forty-Nine Steps, Literature and the Gods, and La follia che viene dalle Ninfe.
Director of Edizioni Adelphi, Calasso also wrote The Forty-Nine Steps and Literature and the Gods.