Ron Terpening

Ron Terpening
Terpening in Tucson, 2006
Born	Ronnie Harold Terpening (1946-05-03) May 3, 1946 (age 78) Bellingham, Washington, U.S.
Pen name	Gerrit Lambertzen, Sarah Rapalje-Bergen
Occupation	Author, professor of Italian
Education	University of Oregon, University of California, Berkeley
Genre	Suspense, Thrillers, Young-adult Fiction
Notable awards	National Endowment for the Humanities (1983)
Spouse	Vicki Terpening
Website
ronterpening.com

Ron Terpening (born Ronnie Harold Terpening on May 3, 1946) is an American writer, professor of Italian, and editor. Though he started his writing career as an author of young-adult fiction, where the father/son conflict is a major theme, he is best known for his later novels of suspense, most of which are set, at least in part, in Italy, reflecting his academic background as a scholar of Italian culture. His thriller League of Shadows, for example, deals with the Fascist Era in Italy and its aftermath in the contemporary world.^[1] A later international thriller, Nine Days in October, came out of the author's course research on the forces of order and disorder in contemporary Italy^[2] and follows a band of criminals and ex-terrorists as they attempt to carry out an assassination plot. All of his novels, including Storm Track and Tropic of Fear, the latter set in Paraguay, are noted for their strong sense of place.^[3] In most of his novels, his protagonist is usually a common man placed in a situation where powerful forces are arrayed against him.

While his novels take place in the modern era, Terpening's academic research has focused on Italian authors of the Renaissance, most notably the Venetian Humanist Lodovico Dolce, although he has also published a study of the infernal boatman Charon and numerous articles on other writers of the 15th and 16th centuries. His editing work has ranged from textbooks, mostly anthologies of Italian literature, to broad studies of Italian culture.