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Alberto Moravia
Eminent, highly regarded 20th-century Italian author, whose numerous works, such as "The Woman of Rome" (1947) and "The Conformist" (1951), paved the way for other European postwar novelists with their explicit depiction of sex and sexuality. A sickly, lonely child, Moravia began his first novel at 16, and after finding no one to bring it out, self-published "Gli Indifferenti/The Time of Indifference" in 1929. After several other attacks on fascism, which made him a marked man by the Mussolini regime, Moravia came into his own after the war, producing prolific tales of Rome and sex.