A Life
Published on 1. February 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-1-78227-413-1 (ISBN)
Description
<b>'If you have never read Svevo, do as soon as you can. He is beautiful and important' <i>New Statesman</i>
'A master' <i>New Yorker</i></b>
Alfonso Nitti, tormented by the demands of his bank job, longs to be a poet. He also seems to be falling in love with Annetta, the vain and arrogant daughter of his boss. In this tale of the frustrated existence of a bank clerk with a poetic soul, the clash between the emptiness of Alfonso's daily life and his artistic aspirations has devastating consequences.
<i>A Life</i> is the highly personal, semi-autobiographical first novel by Italo Svevo. A failure on first publication, it wasn't until the young James Joyce read this book that <i>A Life</i> finally gained the recognition it deserved, and Svevo was celebrated as one of the greatest Italian modernist novelists.
'A master' <i>New Yorker</i></b>
Alfonso Nitti, tormented by the demands of his bank job, longs to be a poet. He also seems to be falling in love with Annetta, the vain and arrogant daughter of his boss. In this tale of the frustrated existence of a bank clerk with a poetic soul, the clash between the emptiness of Alfonso's daily life and his artistic aspirations has devastating consequences.
<i>A Life</i> is the highly personal, semi-autobiographical first novel by Italo Svevo. A failure on first publication, it wasn't until the young James Joyce read this book that <i>A Life</i> finally gained the recognition it deserved, and Svevo was celebrated as one of the greatest Italian modernist novelists.
Reviews / Votes
Svevo is perhaps the most significant Italian modernist novelist * Times Literary Supplement * If you have never read Svevo, do as soon as you can. He is beautiful and important * New Statesman * Perhaps in the final estimate the most important work of James Joyce will not be Ulysses, but the discovery of Italo Svevo * Daily Telegraph * The books throbs like a wound... A master * New Yorker * A little masterpiece * Guardian *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-78227-413-1 (9781782274131)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Italo Svevo was born in Trieste in 1861. His real name was Hector Schmitz. Educated mainly in Bavaria, he wrote in Italian, and as a young man had to work as a French and German correspondence clerk in a Trieste bank. He was not happy in the business world and at the age of thirty-one he wrote A Life, and published it at his own expense. It was followed four years later by Senility, a novel of tortured eroticism. Both A Life and Senility were such failures that Svevo gave up writing for the next twenty years. During this time he became a good friend of James Joyce, who was also living in Trieste, and who was able to use his influence to make Svevo known in Europe. Svevo was just becoming recognised in Italy when he was killed in a car accident in 1928.