'The seething cauldron of life, the infinite stratification of reality,  the inextricable tangle of knowledge are what Gadda wants to depict'  Italo Calvino  At the height of Fascist rule in Italy and following the death of his mother, Carlo Emilio Gadda began work on his first novel, The Experience of Pain.  This portrait of a highly educated young man whose anger and  frustration frequently erupt in ferocious outbursts directed towards his  ageing mother is a powerful critique of the society of his time and the  deep wounds inflicted on his generation. Set in a fictional South  American country, The Experience of Pain is at once richly  imaginative and intensely personal: the perfect introduction to Gadda's  innovative style and literary virtuosity.    Translated by Richard Dixon

The Experience of Pain

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Gadda, Carlo Emilio

Mystery

Penguin Classic

In a large apartment house in central Rome, two crimes are committed within a matter of days: a burglary, in which a good deal of money and precious jewels are taken, and a murder, as a young woman whose husband is out of town is found with her throat cut. Called in to investigate, melancholy Detective Ciccio, a secret admirer of the murdered woman and a friend of her husbandâ€™s, discovers that almost everyone in the apartment building is somehow involved in the case, and with each new development the mystery only deepens and broadens. Gaddaâ€™s sublimely different detective story presents a scathing picture of fascist Italy while tracking the elusiveness of the truth, the impossibility of proof, and the infinite complexity of the workings of fate, showing how they come into conflict with the demands of justice and love. Italo Calvino, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Alberto Moravia all considered That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana to be the great modern Italian novel. Unquestionably, it is a work of universal significance and protean genius: a rich social novel, a comic opera, an act of political resistance, a blazing feat of baroque wordplay, and a haunting story of life and death.

That Awful Mess on Via Merulana

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Texas Bookman

Acquainted With Grief is an autobiographical story by one of Italy’s most important writers of the post-war era. Referred to by Gadda himself as a "self-inflicted wound," it describes the tormented relationship between a son and his widowed mother.

Acquainted With Grief

Parenting & Relationships

Peter Owen Publishers

Officer Francesco Ingravallo investigates the death of a childless married woman and learns about the complex forces of fate

That Awful Mess on Via Merulana (English and Italian Edition)

George Braziller

The story of Maradagal, an imaginary South American country, serves as a satire of the fascism in Italy during the thirties

In a large apartment house in central Rome, two crimes are committed within a matter of days: a burglary, in which a good deal of money and precious jewels are taken, and a murder, as a young woman whose husband is out of town is found with her throat cut. Called in to investigate, melancholy Detective Ciccio, a secret admirer of the murdered woman and a friend of her husband’s, discovers that almost everyone in the apartment building is somehow involved in the case, and with each new development the mystery only deepens and broadens. Gadda’s sublimely different detective story presents a scathing picture of fascist Italy while tracking the elusiveness of the truth, the impossibility of proof, and the infinite complexity of the workings of fate, showing how they come into conflict with the demands of justice and love. Italo Calvino, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Alberto Moravia all considered That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana to be the great modern Italian novel. Unquestionably, it is a work of universal significance and protean genius: a rich social novel, a comic opera, an act of political resistance, a blazing feat of baroque wordplay, and a haunting story of life and death.

That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana (New York Review Books Classics)

United States

NYRB Classics

L'Adalgisa : le croquis milanais

SEUIL

La Connaissance de la douleur

Literary

POINTS

Journal de guerre et de captivité

Essays & Correspondence

BOURGOIS

El aprendizaje del dolor (Spanish Edition)

Ediciones Cátedra

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Books by Gadda, Carlo Emilio