Beginning in 1945, Sgalambro worked jointly with the review magazine Prisma (directed by Leonardo Grassi); his first writing was Paralipomeni all'irrazionalismo.[citation needed] In 1947, he became a student at the University of Catania with a law degree.[2] From 1959, along with Sebastiano Addamo, he wrote for the magazine Incidenze, with his first article being Crepuscolo e notte (reprinted in 2011). Meanwhile, he wrote for the journal Tempo Presente (directed by Nicola Chiaromonte and Ignazio Silone).
Sgalambro married in 1963, at the age of 39. He had five children (Elena, Simona, Riccardo, Irene, Elisa). The declining income from his citrus orchards, which he had inherited from his father, led him to undertake a thesis for a degree and start teaching to supplement his income.
Publication with Adelphi
In the late 1970s, Sgalambro began organizing his thoughts into a systematic body of work. At the age of 55, he sent his first book La morte del sole, to the editor Adelphi. In the following years, Sgalambro published with Adelphi: Treatise on Impiety, Anatol, On Short Thinking, Theological Dialogue, On Indifference in Matters of Society, Consolation, Treatise on Age, De Mundo Pessimo, and Knowledge of the Worst and Of Crime. During the early 1990s, he established a small editorial activity named De Martinis in Catania with friends. Sgalambro's role included managing pamphlets, publishing a pair of works (Dialogo sul comunismo and Contro la musica), and printing some operas by Giulio Cesare Vanini and Julien Benda.
Collaboration with Battiato
In 1993, during the presentation of a common friend's poetry book, he encountered the musician Franco Battiato . After a few days, Battiato asked to meet him to propose the libretto for the opus Il cavaliere dell'intelletto, about Frederik II of Hohenstaufen.
Starting in 1998 he penned song lyrics for Patty Pravo (Emma), Fiorella Mannoia (Il movimento del dare), Carmen Consoli (Marie ti amiamo) and Milva (Non conosco nessun Patrizio). In 2000, he published the single La mer, containing the cover of the famous song by Charles Trenet. In 2001, he published the album Fun club, produced by Franco Battiato and Saro Cosentino, containing songs including La vie en rose (by Édith Piaf), Moon river (by Henry Mancini) and Me gustas tú (by Manu Chao). In 2007, he lent his voice to the DC-9 airliner in Pippo Pollina's opera Ultimo volo ("Last flight"), about the 1980 loss of Itavia Flight 870 also known as the Ustica massacre. In 2009, he published the single La canzone della galassia, containing a cover of The galaxy song (taken from Monty Python's The meaning of life), sung with the Sardinian-English group Mab.
Manlio Sgalambro & Franco Battiato, Il cavaliere dell'intelletto: opera in due atti per l'ottocentenario della nascita di Federico II di Svevia (1994).
In Invito al viaggio (from Fleurs), he declaims (in Italian):
I invite you to the voyage in the land that is like you. The misty sunlights of those cloudy skies have for my spirit the charm of your treacherous eyes, shining brightly. There all is order and beauty, luxury, peace, and pleasure; the world falls asleep in a warm glow of light; see on the canals those vessels sleeping: their mood is adventurous to satisfy your slightest desires.
In Corpi in movimento (from Campi magnetici), he declaims (in Italian):
If, in speaking of my points, I think of some system of things, e.g., the system: love, law, chimney-sweep… and then assume all my axioms as relations between these things, then my propositions, e.g., Pythagoras' theorem, are also valid for these things.
— David Hilbert, Letter to Frege of 29 December 1899
Since 1996, he participates in almost every Franco Battiato's tours:
In '97 he declaims (in Latin) on Battiato's song Areknames (from Pollution), renamed for the occasion Canzone chimica:
In 2002, he sings a new version – with lyrics adapted philosophically – of Accetta il consiglio (taken from The big Kahuna), published the next year in live album Last summer dance.
Cinema
In Perduto amor, he acts Martino Alliata, philosophy teacher of the leading character (Corrado Fortuna).