Born in Palermo, the son of a high school professor, in 1945 Ripellino graduated in Slavistics at the University of Palermo.[1] In 1947 he enrolled the filmmaking courses at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia; the same year he married Ela Hlochova, a Czech student of Italian literature he had known during a 1946 study travel in Prague, who would who would become his closer collaborator.[1]
Active as a theatre critic and a poet since 1940, after his university degree he focused his works on translations, critical essays and literary history books about Russian, Polish and Czech-Slovak literature.[1] Among Ripellino's major works are Poesia russa del Novecento ("Russian Poetry of the 20th Century", 1954), Majakovskij e il teatro russo d’avanguardia ("Majakovsky and Russian avant-garde theatre", 1959), Magic Prague (Italian:Praga magica, 1973).[1] He had a key role in popularizing several Russian authors to the Italian public, notably Boris Pasternak and Alexander Blok.[1]
In 1965 he won the Viareggio Prize with Il trucco e l’anima. I maestri della regia nel teatro russo del Novecento ("The Trick and the Soul. The masters of stage direction in 20th-century Russian theatre").[1] He authored the Slavic theatre section of the Encyclopedia of Performing Arts.[1] He collaborated with several important publications, including Corriere della Sera and L'Espresso, and was consultant for Russian literature for Einaudi publisher.[1][2] Ripellino also had an important academic career, first as a lecturer of Slavic philology and Czech language at the University of Bologna, and later as professor of Russian language and literature and Czech-Slovak literature at the Sapienza University of Rome.[1]
Ripellino suffered from tuberculosis from early age and underwent a pneumectomy. He died because of the consequences of a cardiovascular crisis in 1978.[1]
