Travelling salesman Enrico Gaia decides to play a trick on the conceited ageing litterateur 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 Gaia's 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.

Author Biography

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 Zeno's Conscience, which is now considered a classic of Italian fiction.