Alberto Moravia was born in Rome in 1907 and published his first novel at 21. In the 1930s, censored by Mussolini and the Vatican alike, Moravia resorted to writing under a pseudonym. During the war Moravia and his wife Elsa Morante lived in hiding in the mountains south of Rome until the liberation. Among his fourteen novels translated into English are The Conformist, Two Women, and The Time of Indifference. He died in 1990.
