The glitter and cynicism of Rome under Mussolini provide the background of what is probably Alberto Moravia’s best and best-known novel—The Woman of Rome. It’s the story of Adriana, a simple girl with no fortune but her beauty who models naked for a painter, accepts gifts from men, and could never quite identify the moment when she traded her private dream of home and children for the life of a prostitute. One of the very few novels of the twentieth century which can be ranked with the work of Dostoevsky, The Woman of Rome also tells the stories of the tortured university student Giacomo, a failed revolutionary who refuses to admit his love for Adriana; of the sinister figure of Astarita, the Secret Police officer obsessed with Adriana; and of the coarse and brutal criminal Sonzogno, who treats Adriana as his private property. Within this story of passion and betrayal, Moravia calmly strips away the pride and arrogance hiding the corrupt heart of Italian Fascism.
Author
Novels, such as Time of Desecration (1978), of Italian writer Alberto Moravia, pen name of Alberto Pincherle, explore the alienation and ennui of the middle class. Alberto Moravia, pseudonimo di Alberto Pincherle (1907 – 1990), è stato uno scrittore, giornalista, sceneggiatore, saggista, drammaturgo, poeta, reporter di viaggio, critico cinematografico e politico italiano. Considerato uno dei più importanti romanzieri del XX secolo, ha esplorato nelle sue opere i temi della sessualità, dell'alienazione sociale e dell'esistenzialismo. Alberto Moravia, born Alberto Pincherle, was one of the leading Italian novelists of the twentieth century whose novels explore matters of modern sexuality, social alienation, and existentialism. He was also a journalist, playwright, essayist and film critic. Moravia was an atheist, his writing was marked by its factual, cold, precise style, often depicting the malaise of the bourgeoisie, underpinned by high social and cultural awareness. Moravia believed that writers must, if they were to represent reality, assume a moral position, a clearly conceived political, social, and philosophical attitude, but also that, ultimately, "A writer survives in spite of his beliefs". Between 1959 and 1962 Moravia was president of PEN International, the worldwide association of writers.
