Alberto Moravia
About
Biography
Filmography
Family & Companions
Bibliography
Biography
Eminent, highly regarded 20th-century Italian author, whose numerous works, such as "The Woman of Rome" (1947) and "The Conformist" (1951), paved the way for other European postwar novelists with their explicit depiction of sex and sexuality. A sickly, lonely child, Moravia began his first novel at 16, and after finding no one to bring it out, self-published "Gli Indifferenti/The Time of Indifference" in 1929. After several other attacks on fascism, which made him a marked man by the Mussolini regime, Moravia came into his own after the war, producing prolific tales of Rome and sex.
Though he wrote directly for the screen on several occasions, Moravia's greatest contribution to the cinema has been his many short stories and novels. Notable adaptations of his novels include Vittorio De Sica's "Two Women" (1960), based on "La Ciociara," Jean-Luc Godard's "Contempt" (1963), from "Il Disprezzo," Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Conformist" (1970), from the book of the same name, and Dorris Dorrie's "Me and Him" (1988) from "Io et lui."
Filmography
Writer (Feature Film)
Misc. Crew (Feature Film)
Life Events
1924
Began writing first novel (date approximate)
1929
Self-published first novel, "Gli Indifferenti/The Time of Indifference"
1934
Lectured at Columbia University
1952
Works declared immoral by the Vatican and placed on its Index of Forbidden Books (though in the mid-1960s the Index was discontinued)