Giuseppe Ungaretti was born in Alexandria in 1888. In 1912 he left Egypt to study in Paris where he was influenced by the French avant garde. Moving to Milan in 1914, he became a central figure of Italian modernism. His sense of poetic vocation and language was further shaped by his experience of the fierce fighting on the Austrian front during World War I. After the war, Ungaretti lived near Rome until 1936, when he was offered a professorship at the University of S o Paulo in Brazil. The death of his young son, the outbreak of the World War II and the occupation of Rome had a profound effect on his poetry at this time. He returned to Rome in 1942 and taught at the university there until his retirement. He died in Milan in 1970.