Born in Grosseto in 1922, eldest son of Atide, a bank teller, and Adele Guidi. From an early age he was an avid reader and in his spare time he devoted himself to studying the cello and foreign languages. Not yet 18 years old, he graduated from the Carducci-Ricasoli high school in Grosseto in 1940 and enrolled in the same year in the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy at the University of Pisa. Called to arms in January 1943, he was only able to return to his home town in the autumn of the following year. In 1945 he joined the Partito d'Azione and in February 1948 he graduated with a thesis on John Dewey. In an investigation carried out together with his friend Carlo Cassola, he investigated the living conditions of the miners in the Maremma: the result would be the book I minatori della Maremma (1956). In the meantime, in June 1954, he emigrated to Milan to become editor of the newly-born Feltrinelli publishing house: he remained there until 1957, then was dismissed due to difficulties in adapting to the job. For a living, he devoted himself more and more to his work as a translator, especially of American writers such as Bellow, London, Faulkner, Steinbeck and Miller. He also contributes intensively, with articles on customs, sport, television and film criticism, to newspapers and magazines including 'L'Unità', 'L'Europeo' and 'Il Giorno'. He died in Milan, of cirrhosis of the liver, in 1971.

Bianciardi's work finds its most accomplished expression in the trilogy formed by Il lavoro culturale (1957), L'integrazione (1960) and La vita agra (1962), which critic Goffredo Fofi defined as 'the three parts of a unicum: a novel, an autobiography, a pamphlet, or the three together, on the Italy of the time'. If Il lavoro culturale describes life in Grosseto between the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the following decade in tones that make one think of Fellini's I vitelloni, L'integrazione moves effectively from the rituals of the province to the rhythms of the metropolis, while La vita agra - one of the fundamental books of those years, brought to the big screen in 1964 by Carlo Lizzani - describes the boom period with biting malice, drawing a portrait of a country in a frantic search for well-being. Among his short stories, we should at least mention Il complesso di Loth (1968), which served as the inspiration for Pasquale Festa Campanile for one of his most successful films, Il merlo maschio (1970).