Alberto Moravia (US: moh-RAH-vee-?, -?RAY-, Italian: [al'b?rto mo'ra?vja]; born Alberto Pincherle ['pi?kerle]; November 28, 1907 – September 26, 1990) was an Italian novelist and journalist.
His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation and existentialism.
Moravia is best known for his debut novel Gli indifferenti (1929) and for the anti-fascist novel Il Conformista (The Conformist), the basis for the film The Conformist (1970) directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.
"It is what we are forced to do that forms our character, not what we do of our own free will." Moravia was an atheist.
His writing was marked by its factual, cold, precise style, often depicting the malaise of the bourgeoisie.
It was rooted in the tradition of nineteenth-century narrative, underpinned by high social and cultural awareness.
Moravia believed that writers must, if they were to represent reality, "assume a moral position, a clearly conceived political, social, and philosophical attitude" but also that, ultimately, "A writer survives in spite of his beliefs".
Between 1959 and 1962 Moravia was president of PEN International, the worldwide association of writers.
Italian photographer In 2008 his works have been bought by BEIC - Biblioteca Europea d'Informazione e Cultura (European Library for Information and Culture) of Milan. The whole amount of Paolo Monti's works consists of more than 220,000 photographic negatives, 12,000+ prints and 790 chemigrams that describe the story, society and culture of Italy from 1943 to 1982.