A Life

· Pushkin Press
4.0
1 review
Ebook
320
Pages
Eligible
Ratings and reviews aren’t verified  Learn More

About this ebook

Alfonso, a youthful and poetic bank clerk, has until now been able to maintain his artistic and intellectual sensibilities, undaunted either by the stifling conditions of his employment, or by his increasingly entangled domestic circumstances. However, everything changes when he finds himself falling in love with his employer's conceited daughter, Annetta. When Annetta miraculously begins to encourage Alfonso's advances, he realises the vanity of his infatuation - at the same time that the precarious balance of the life that he has struggled to create for himself is fatally threatened.

Ratings and reviews

4.0
1 review

About the author

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 and published at his own expense, A Life. 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.

Rate this ebook

Tell us what you think.

Reading information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.