Italo Svevo (1861-1928) was an Italian writer and businessman. He
published two novels in the 1890s, A Life and As a Man Grows Older
(the latter available from NYRB Classics), but after they were
dismissed by critics and ignored by the public, he abandoned
literature and went to work in his father-in-law's paint business.
With the support of James Joyce, he returned to writing and
published Zeno's Conscience in 1923 to international acclaim. Svevo
had finished a new book and was at work on another when he was
killed in a car crash in 1928.
Frederika Randall (1948-2020) was a writer, reporter, and
translator. Among her translations are Ippolito Nievo's Confessions
of an Italian and, for NYRB Classics, Guido Morselli's Dissipatio
H.G. and The Communist. She received the National Endowment for the
Arts Literature Fellowship for Translation and the PEN/Heim
Translation Fund Grant, and with Sergio Luzzatto, the Cundill
Prize.
Nathaniel Richis the author ofLosing Earth- A Recent History,a
finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Award;the
novelsKing Zeno,Odds Against Tomorrow, andThe Mayor's Tongue; and
the Little Bookroom titleSan Francisco Noir. He is awriter-at-large
for theNew York Times Magazineand a regular contributor
toTheAtlantic,Harper's, andTheNew York Review of Books. He lives in
New Orleans.
"Frederika Randall’s translation manages to capture the infinite
variety of Zeno’s self-delusions, from being forced out of the
business he’s spent his entire adult life doing, to being a
grandfather and (briefly) a mistress-keeper." —Tom
Bodwen, Book Beat
“The very old man is still a fabulist, and his lies still have
marvellous staying power. . . . As ever, his circumstances clash
with his imaginings – and as ever, it is reality that ultimately
gives way and transforms.” —Becca Rothfield, New Left Review
"It’s always fascinating to see a great writer’s work in progress;
this is no exception" —Corinne Segal, Lit Hub
“For Svevo, life itself is a fatal pathology, the human condition a
sickness for which there is no cure. There exists a treatment,
however: laughter. Though the miseries of old age and fear of death
are central to his late stories, a huge amount of laughter occurs
in A Very Old Man.” —Sigrid Nunez, Harper's Magazine
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