A Perfect Hoax

(Paperback)

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Description

Travelling salesman Enrico Gaia decides to play a trick on the conceited ageing littrateur Mario Samigli: he dupes him into thinking that a representative of a prestigious Viennese publishing house wants to commission a German translation of a long-forgotten novel Samigli had written and published at his own expense forty years ago. This leads the old man to reach new heights of self-delusion, spurred on by Gaias succession of ruses. In this tragicomic study of deception and disappointment, Italo Svevo who himself was an undiscovered writer until his old age parodies elements of his own life and offers an insightful psychological portrait of a person who has lost touch with reality.

Reviews

a wonderful comedy where the resourcefulness of the vain and creative mind is aided by a variety of unlikely circumstances in its desperate effort to reconstruct self-esteem and serenity -- Tim Parks

Author Bio

Born in Trieste in 1861, Italo Svevo worked for a family paint business for most of his life and was unknown as a writer until the 1923 publication thanks in part to the efforts of James Joyce of Zenos Conscience, which is now considered a classic of Italian fiction.