Contempt

By Alberto Moravia
Translated from the Italian by Angus Davidson
Introduction by Tim Parks

Contempt is a brilliant and unsettling work by one of the revolutionary masters of modern European literature. All the qualities for which Alberto Moravia is justly famous—his cool clarity of expression, his exacting attention to psychological complexity and social pretension, his still-striking openness about sex—are evident in this story of a failing marriage. Contempt (which was to inspire Jean-Luc Godard's no-less-celebrated film) is an unflinching examination of desperation and self-deception in the emotional vacuum of modern consumer society.

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Reviews

Rich in substance and resonant with meaning...a rare achievement.
— The New York Times

Also see:

Boredom By Alberto Moravia Translated from the Italian by Angus Davidson Introduction by William Weaver Boredom, the story of a failed artist and pampered son of a rich family who becomes dangerously attached to a young model, examines the complex relations between money, sex, and imperiled masculinity.

The Moon and the Bonfires By Cesare Pavese Translated from the Italian by R.W. Flint Introduction by Mark Rudman The Moon and the Bonfires is a novel of intense lyricism and tragic import, a masterpiece of twentieth-century literature that has been unavailable to American readers for close to fifty years.

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