Cipriano Moio was born in Saint-Denis, in the 93rd district. The son of Italian immigrants, the youngest of five children, he spent his entire childhood in Eaubonne, a suburban housing project north of Paris. He owes much of his childhood happiness to an orchard nestled between the apartment buildings, a wild corner of paradise that was his most wonderful playground. Despite his passion for reading novels, which he devoured in his spare time, school was not the place of fulfillment he had hoped for. He felt as confined there as a caged lion. He was a rebellious dreamer who spent most of his time watching the birds fly outside his classroom windows. After a brief period of study, having earned his BEPC (Brevet d'Études du Premier Cycle), he left school at the age of 17 to work for a few months in two metalworking factories, an experience that definitively dissuaded him from following in his father's footsteps as a Citroën factory worker. He completed his military service in Alsace, a year that left him with lasting nightmares, and then ran his own pizza truck for 12 years. Dissatisfied, yearning for wide open spaces and freedom, and deeply in love with the French language, he left his suburban home and his job as a pizza maker at the age of 33 to settle in the countryside, where he has since devoted himself entirely to writing.