Italo Svevo – författare

Ett av den italienska modernismens stora verk i ny utgåva

»Italiens första modernist. Svevo är en mästare.« The New Yorker

Efter att Italo Svevos två första böcker misslyckats publikt och helt ignorerats av kritikerna publicerade han på egen hand Zenos bekännelser [La coscienza di Zeno] 1923. Romanen kom att bli Svevos litterära genomslag, mycket tack vare vännen James Joyce som fick boken översatt till franska. I dag betraktas Svevo som en av Italiens mest betydande författare, och Zenos bekännelser - ett av modernismens mer framträdande verk - har haft stort inflytande på efterkommande generationer av italienska författare. Den neurotiske affärsmannen och inbitne nikotinmissbrukaren Zeno uppmanas av sin psykiater att självrannsakande skriva ned sina laster i en dagbok. På så sätt ska han kunna få bukt med sitt invecklade rationaliserande av sitt ofta moraliskt tveksamma beteende. Hans sista cigarett behöver nog trots allt inte bli den sista, och även om han försöker övertyga sig själv om att han älskar sin fru finns det godtagbara ursäkter till att fortsätta en utomäktenskaplig affär. I översättning av Åsa Österman och med ett nyskrivet förord av Torbjörn Elensky.

ITALO SVEVO [1861-1928] var en italiensk författare, född i Trieste i dåvarande kejsarriket Österrike. Hans far var av tyskjudisk börd och hans mor var italienska. Svevo skrev sammanlagt tre romaner samt ett flertal noveller och pjäser. Svevo var själv övertygad om att han var förebilden för James Joyces romanfigur Leopold Bloom.

''I am sure a cigarette has a more poignant flavour when it is the last''A neurotic Italian businessman obsessed by his own hypochondria, Zeno Cosini recounts his early years to his psychoanalyst Dr S as a form of therapy. With a cigarette clutched permanently between his fingers, he explores the important themes of his life: his love of smoking, his relationship with his parents, his marriage. Structured as a series of conversations with his psychoanalyst, Zeno was an innovation in its time, and remains a curious and intriguing delight. Michael Hoffman places Confessions of Zeno in its European context in his sparkling introduction.

''Italy''s first modernist ... a marvellous writer, unjustly neglected. Svevo is a master.'' - The New Yorker

The cult classic discovered and championed by James Joyce, Confessions of Zeno is a miracle of psychological realism from one of the most important figures in modern Italian literary history. A hymn to self-delusion and procrastination, long hailed as a seminal work of modernism in the tradition of Joyce, Musil, Proust and Kafka.

When the vain, obsessive and guilt-ridden Zeno seeks help for his neuroses, his psychoanalyst suggests he writes his memoirs as a form of therapy. Zeno''s account is an alternative reality, a series of elliptical episodes dealing with the death of his father, his career, his marriage and affairs, and, above all, his passion for smoking and his spectacular failure to resist the promise of that last cigarette. Zeno''s adventures rise to antic heights in this pioneering psychoanalytic novel, as his restlessly self-preserving commentary inevitably embroiders the truth. Absorbing and devilishly entertaining, Confessions of Zeno is at once a comedy of errors, a sly testimonial to the joys of procrastination, and a surpassingly lucid vision of human nature by one of the most important Italian literary figures of the twentieth century.

Praise:

''One of the indispensable 20th-century novels ... A revolutionary book, and arguably (in fact, probably) the finest of all Italian novels.'' - Kirkus Reviews

''Hilarious ... Effortlessly inventive and eerily prescient.'' - The Atlantic Monthly

''One of the great comic novels of the twentieth century ... [Svevo is] perhaps the most significant Italian modernist novelist.'' - The Times Literary Supplement

''There are moments where his realism seems, by the sheer strangeness and rawness of what lies exposed under its microscopic focus, only a hair''s breadth away from the austere fabulism of Kafka.'' - The Guardian

''Svevo''s masterpiece.'' - Los Angeles Times

About the author:

Italo Svevo, one of Italy''s great Modernists, was unrecognized in his own country until James Joyce befriended the writer and championed his work. His three novels, A Life, As a Man Grows Older and Confessions of Zeno, are all recognised as masterpieces of Italian literature.