Italo Svevo

(1861 - 1928)

Born Ettore Schmitz in Trieste, Italy, the author Italo Svevo, whose pseudonym means Italian Swabian, published A Life and As a Man Grows Older before abandoning fiction in 1899 to work for his father-in-law’s paint business. Since he often traveled to England for work, he began in 1907 to employ a tutor for English. The tutor was James Joyce, and it was in part Joyce’s encouragement that led Svevo to write again, publishing Zeno’s Conscience in 1923. He died in a car crash in 1928 before completing the book’s sequel.