Dino Buzzati (1906–1972) is a classic of European literature of the twentieth century, prose writer, journalist, and artist. His books have been translated into all the leading languages of the world, and films have been made based on many of them, including “The Mysteries of the Old Forest”. “The Mystery of the Old Forest” was published in Italy in 1935, but has never been published in Russian, although readers in our country are well familiar with Buzzati’s work and his books are a success among both adults and children. The novel is written in the form of a legend, is somewhat allegorical and is close to a parable. Reality and fantasy in it are closely intertwined and almost inseparable from each other - it is no coincidence that Buzzati is often compared to Edgar Allan Poe and Kafka. His style is spare, laconic, restrained, but at the same time unusually bright, internally intense and evokes a strong emotional response in the reader.