Conjugal Love - Paperback

by Alberto Moravia (Author), Marina Harss (Translator)

In this modern classic from the renowned Italian author, an aspiring writer's career and marriage threaten to come undone against the heady backdrop of 1930s Tuscany.

To begin with I'd like to talk about my wife. To love means, in addition to many other things, to delight in gazing upon and observing the beloved.

When Silvio, a rich Italian dilettante, and his beautiful wife agree to move to the country and forgo sex so that he will have the energy to write a successful novel, something is bound to go wrong: Silvio's literary ambitions are far too big for his second-rate talent, and his wife Leda is a passionate woman.

This dangerously combustible situation explodes when Leda accuses Antonio, the local barber who comes every morning to shave Silvio, of trying to molest her. Silvio obstinately refuses to dismiss him, and the quarrel and its shattering consequences put the couple's love to the test.

Author Biography

Alberto Moravia, born in Rome in 1907, was one of the greatest Italian writers of the twentieth century. His novels, which include The Woman of Rome, The Conformist, Contempt, and Two Women, were adapted into films by Bernardo Bertolucci and Jean-Luc Godard. He died in 1990.

Marina Harss's translations include For Solo Violin (Per Vionlino Solo), a war memoir by Aldo Zargani, and stories in The Forbidden Stories of Marta Veneranda, by Sonia Rivera-Vald. Her translations have also appeared in Bomb, Brooklyn Rail, and Autadafe. She is a researcher at The New Yorker, and lives in New York City.