Name the Italian Author! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Italo Calvino

'The Cloven Viscount' is the English title of this novel by Italo Calvino(1923-1985).In this divertingly macabre fantasy, a nobleman is neatly bisected by a cannon ball in a battle against the Turks.

Answer: Cesare Pavese

'The Moon and the Bonfire' is the English title of this novel written by Cesare Pavese (1908-50), Italian novelist, poet, and translator.

Answer: Italo Calvino

English title: 'The Baron in the Trees'.It is another example of this brilliant Italian writer's fantasy. Set in the eighteenth century, it tells the story of Cosimo, a young Italian nobleman who rebels against parental authority by climbing into the trees and remaining there for the rest of his life.

Answer: Beppe Fenoglio

English title: 'The Partisan Johnny' by Beppe Fenoglio(1922-1963)who was one of the few writers to describe WW2 as a partisan without resorting to unnecessary rhetoric.

Answer: Carlo Cassola

Carlo Cassola (1917-1987)is the author of "La ragazza di Bube"
which inspired the film directed by Luigi Comencini in 1963. The novel tells the love story between Mara and Bube, a partisan who, at the end of the war, is involved in the murder of a political opponent. Bube is forced to escape and Mara starts a new relation with Stefano. When Bube is eventually arrested Mara, however, decides to go back to him.

Answer: Primo Levi

"If This is a Man" was published in 1947, by Primo Levi(1919-1987), Italian-Jewish writer and chemist, who was arrested during the Second World War as a member of the anti-Fascist resistance and deported to Auschwitz in 1944. His experience in the death camp and his subsequent travels through Eastern Europe were the subject of powerful memoirs, fiction and poetry.

Answer: Luigi Pirandello

"Henry IV" is a play by Luigi Pirandello(1867-1936)who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934 for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage."
This drama tells about a man who believes he is the German emperor Henry IV. To accommodate his illness his wealthy sister has placed him in a medieval castle surrounded by actors dressed as eleventh-century courtiers...

Answer: Italo Svevo

Italo Svevo is the pseudonym of Italian novelist Ettore Schmitz(1861-1928), author of "The Confessions of Zeno", regarded as his masterpiece. This work, which pioneers in the use of stream-of-consciousness narrative and thought analysis, is often called the forerunner of the modern psychoanalytic novel and has been compared with works by Proust and Joyce.

Answer: Giorgio Bassani

"The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" by Giorgio Bassani(1916-2000) portrays an aristocratic Jewish family in Ferrara during the years before 1943, when its members were deported to extermination camps in Germany.This novel inspired a film directed by Vittorio De Sica in 1971.

Answer: Elsa Morante

"History" by Elsa Morante(1918-1985)recounts Italy's wartime history through the eyes of a poor Roman family living in the ghetto and shows history to have violent and pitiless effects on the lives of common people.