12 Facts About Tiziano Terzani

Tiziano Terzani's mother was a hatmaker and his father worked in a mechanic workshop.

Tiziano Terzani attended the University of Pisa as a law student and studied at the prestigious Collegio Medico-Giuridico of the Scuola Normale Superiore, which today is Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies.

Tiziano Terzani then resigned from Olivetti and moved to New York to study at Columbia University at the School of International and Public Affairs in order to study Chinese language and culture.

Tiziano Terzani then offered his collaboration to the Italian daily newspapers Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica.

Tiziano Terzani lived for years at a time in Beijing, Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok and New Delhi.

Tiziano Terzani's stay in Beijing in the 1980s came to an end when he was arrested and expelled in 1984 from the country for "counter-revolutionary activities".

Tiziano Terzani stopped using his Chinese name after this incident.

In what is perhaps his most well-known book, Un indovino mi disse, Tiziano Terzani describes his travels across Asia by land and sea following the advice and warning from a fortune teller in Hong Kong that he must avoid aeroplanes for the whole year of 1993.

Tiziano Terzani spent the early 2000s in confinement in the mountainous Himalayas region, in a small hut that he rented in order to meditate and work on his books.

Tiziano Terzani returned to Italy, spending the last months of his life with his wife and grown son in Orsigna, a little village in the Apennine Mountains in the province of Pistoia that he considered "his true, last love".

Tiziano Terzani's books have been translated into many languages: German, French, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Turkish, Slovenian, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Hungarian, and Romanian and published in India, Thailand, Brazil and Argentina.

The role of the ailing, retired Tiziano Terzani, now living in the mountains of Tuscany dressed and groomed just like an Indian sadhu, is played by Swiss-German actor Bruno Ganz and that of his son by Italian actor Elio Germano.