Italo Svevo

Italo Svevo
Portrait of Italo Svevo
Born
Aron Hector Schmitz

(1861-12-19)19 December 1861
Died13 September 1928(1928-09-13) (aged 66)
NationalityItalian, Austro-Hungarian
Occupation(s)Novelist, short story writer, playwright, businessman
Notable workLa coscienza di Zeno
SpouseLivia Veneziani

Aron Hector Schmitz (19 December 1861  13 September 1928), better known by the pseudonym Italo Svevo (Italian: [ˈiːtalo ˈzvɛːvo]), was an Italian and Austro-Hungarian writer, businessman, novelist, playwright, and short story writer.

A close friend of Irish novelist and poet James Joyce, Svevo was considered a pioneer of the psychological novel in Italy and is best known for his modernist novel La coscienza di Zeno (1923), which became a widely appreciated classic of Italian literature. He was also the cousin of the Italian academic Steno Tedeschi.