Ettore Schmitz

Born in Trieste, Austrian Empire (today in Italy), Ettore Schmitz was a pioneer of Italian prose modernism under the pen name Italo Svevo. Raised in a German-speaking home and educated at a boarding school near Würzburg, Schmitz grew up immersed in several European cultural traditions. Returning to Trieste, he pursued a commercial career but also turned to writing, publishing his first novel, Una Vita, in 1892. Notable for its formally innovative characterization of the inner life, this first novel did not bring him recognition at the time; his second novel Senilità (1898) was likewise ignored. In 1907, Schmitz hired James Joyce, who was living in Trieste at the time, as his English tutor, and the two developed a close friendship. With Joyce’s encouragement, Schmitz returned to writing, publishing his best-regarded novel, La conscienza di Zeno, in 1923, again pseudonymously. At the time he was writing its sequel, Schmitz died in a car crash.