Alberto Moravia

Also found in: Wikipedia.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Moravia, Alberto

(pseudonym of Alberto Pincherle). Born Nov. 28, 1907, in Rome. Italian writer.

The sociopsychological content of Moravia’s work was apparent from his first novel, The Indifferent Ones (1929), which depicted the spiritual vacuity of Italian bourgeois youth. The satirical antifascist tenor of Moravia’s writings in the 1930’s and the early 1940’s resulted in his persecution by the fascist regime. Moravia’s postwar novel The Conformist (1951) calls for the denunciation of fascism on ethical grounds. The influence of neorealism was reflected in the two collections Roman Tales (1954; Russian translations, 1956, 1959) and More Roman Tales, about the hard life of the Roman poor, and in the novel Two Women (1957; Russian translation, 1958), about the life of poor women during World War II.

Moravia’s works of the 1960’s and the early 1970’s, including the novels The Empty Canvas (1960), The Lie (1965), and Two (1971), and the short-story collection The Fetish (1963; Russian translation, 1964) and Paradise (1970; Russian translation, 1971) develop the theme of the alienation and spiritual impoverishment of modern man in a bourgeois consumer society. Critical realism in Moravia’s work is complicated by Freudian motifs and ironic skepticism. Moravia is the author of essays, plays, and travel notes, including Month,in the USSR (1958), and a book about Africa, What Tribe Do You Belong To? (1972; Russian translation, 1973). Moravia takes part in public life and is among the progressive representatives of Italian culture.

WORKS

Opere complete, 33 vols. Milan-Rome, 1953–72.
Un altra vita. Milan, 1973.
In Russian translation: Beatriche Chenchi. Moscow, 1957.
“Prezrenie.” Inostrannaia literatura, 1963, nos. 9–10.
Dom, v kotorom soversheno prestuplenie: Rasskazy. Moscow, 1964.

REFERENCES

Potapova, Z. M. Neorealizm v itaPianskoi literature. Moscow, 1961.
Limentani, A. A. Moravia tra esistenza e realtd. Venice, 1962.
Rebay, L. A. Moravia. New York-London, 1970.
Siciliano, E. A. Moravia. Milan, 1971.

G. D. BOGEMSKII

Mentioned in ?

References in periodicals archive ?

answers WHO WHAT WHERE WHEN: Quincy Jones; Alberto Moravia; Moscow, Russia; November 30th.

Time out extra

But the turning point in his career came in 1970 when he turned out two outstanding films, ""The Spider's Stratagem" and the intricate, ambivalent adaptation of Alberto Moravia's novel ""The Conformist".

Bernardo Bertolucci of "Last Tango" fame, dies in Rome

Elsa Filosa si concentra invece sulla seconda novella e lo fa prendendo spunto da un'intuizione di Alberto Moravia sulla centralita dell'azione nel Decameron.

Francesco Ciabattoni and Pier Massimo Forni (eds.). The "Decameron" Third Day in Perspective

Evergreen regulars Tyler, Hentoff, and Rader were on hand to weigh in, as were Alberto Moravia, Fernando Arrabal, Charles Michener, Stuart Byron, and John Simon.

HOT TAKE: J. Hoberman on From the Third Eye: The Evergreen Review Film Reader

We learn from Alarcon's introduction that she became a world traveler and befriended the writer Alberto Moravia, the filmmaker Federico Fellini, and other artists, and that she became a kind of godmother to Latin American artists and intellectuals living in Europe, but I wanted to know more.

Epistolary Autobiography

It is an adaptation of one of Alberto Moravia's texts.

A week packed with cultural events in Cairo

I grandi amori, la paternica negata, le forti amicizie (Alberto Moravia, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Palma Bucarelli, Renato Guttuso, Sartre e Simone de Beauvoir).

Carlo Levi a Roma

Alberto Moravia (1907-1990) is a writer who deserves to be more widely read than he is these days.

Alberto Moravia. Agostino

Gordon discusses the roles of Levi, Alberto Moravia, and Salvatore Quasi modo in facilitating a broader dissemination of Holocaust knowledge.

The holocaust in Italian culture,1944-2010

Based on a short story by Italian author Alberto Moravia, it followed a young and successful working woman as she struggles to get out of an affair with a married man.