Secondo Tranquilli ( pseudonym Ignazio Silone ), was born in a peasant family the first of  May 1900 of Pescina, a little town in Marsica, about sixty Km from Aquila. His father was a little landowner, while his mother a weaver.
After attending the primary scholl at Pescina, he specialized in classical studies.
In 1915 he was left an orphan according to the terrible earthquake of Marsica while Italy took part to World war one.
Soon after he went to live in the poorest quarter of his town deciding to devote his live to humble people especially poor men and illiterate " cafoni " from Marsica obliged to suffer violences and abuses so he  sided with those who hunger for justice.
In 1917 at the age of seventeen, he sent some aticles to the " Avanti " where he denounced the embezzlements of founds assigned to his region for the reconstruction after the earthquake.
He also took part to the protests against the entry of Italy at war.
After war he went to live in Rome where he yoined the " Socialist Youth "against Fascism.
In 1921 he was among the promoters of the Italian Communist Party. In 1922 fascists marched to Rome while Silone became the director of the Roman magazine " L'avanguardia ".
When, in 1926, were promulgated special laws and the abolished of all political parties except the fascist one, he continued secretly devoting himself to the political attivity in spite of risks.
While wanted by the police, he was obliged to run run away from Italy livingsecretaly, collaborating with Gramsci but in 1930 he come away from the Communist party from his opposition to Stalin's politics when he was victorious and his antagonists Throtkij e Zinonev were expelled. This is the time when italian comunists divided and Togliatti expelled some leaders from the party.
In the same periode Silone's younger brother, the only survivor in his family was unfairly arrested in 1928 under the charge of belonging to the illegal Communist party.
When his brother was arrested he decided to go and live in Svitzerland where he remained for a long time determined to live as a socialist without a party and a Christian without a church.
At Davos in Svithzerland he published some immigrants works; he wrote lots of  articles and essays on Italian fascism but in 1933 he published the novel " Fontamara " where he tells about the modest life of the " cafoni " in a little town in Marsica.
The novel was written in German but it was translated in 28 languages with a big success all over Europe.
In Fontamara we meet Silone's first hero, Bernardo Viola, who was defeated while trying to change things in the eternal figth between poor peasant and and the power; in this case the power was represented by fascists, the new oppressors.
After Bernardo Viola there is Pietro Spina, the new protagonist of the two following novels: " Vino e Pane ", " Il seme sotto la neve ".
Silone usually defined himself " a socialist without a party and a christian without a church.
At the outbrake of the World war two, he returned to political activity caring about the secret antifascist.
He came back to Italy in 1944 as a director of the socialist daily " Avanti ".
In 1948 he left politics and completaly devoted to his inclination writing " Una manciata di more " ( 1952 ), " Il segreto di Luca "           ( 1956 ), and " La volpe e le camiele " ( 1960 ).
But the highest moment of his ideology  was " L'avventura di un povero cristiano " (1962 ), where he told about the experience of  Pietro Angelerio dal Morrone elected Pope under the name of Celestino V.
He didn't want to sacrifice his own spiritual integrity to compromises between ecclesiastic institutions and political power so he resigned the pontificate.
At that time, this choice was disdained by Dante Alighieri but approved by Silone.
In the last years of his life, he wrote the novel " Severina " ( 1981 ) and the essay " Memorie del carcere svizzero ( 1979 ).
In 1978 after a long illnes, he died in a clinic in Ginevra by a brain attack.       
He was buried at Pescina dei Marsi, at the foot of the old bell tower of Saint Bernard without any inseriphon on his grave.